We already see drones zipping through the sky when filming, watching traffic, or even racing. Yet the sight of a drone working beneath the sea is something else entirely—an arena where pressure hostilely tests every task and even navigation becomes a challenge.
In 2018, a Belgian tech entrepreneur and diving enthusiast named Christophe Chatillon took a bold step. She reached out to a robotics student in a hometown Facebook group via a message on a phone. From there, Sayri Arteaga and Meidi Garcia joined the venture. A single meeting was enough to register a partnership and form an ambitious project that would launch the underwater equivalent of a drone: an autonomous robot capable of locating itself, mapping the seafloor, and assessing its condition. The aim was to monitor critical habitats like Posidonia meadows and other underwater fauna .
uOne, the underwater robot developed by the Alicante-based firm, stands as a testament to this effort.
Daily links connect El Altet airport with the community’s capital, highlighting the fact that Belgians are among the second-largest foreign buyers of coastal homes on the Costa Blanca. The robotics degree from the University of Alicante and a growing technological hub around the Digital Zone, backed by the Generalitat Valenciana, convinced the founders of the firm. Entrepreneurs there believe strongly in the business potential of their technology .
“Working underwater is extremely challenging. Until now, most tasks like photography or seabed mapping have been done by divers who require special certifications and gear, and can only stay under for about 45 minutes to an hour,” Arteaga explains. Robots, by contrast, aren’t bound by such time constraints .
Underwater vehicles used for such missions historically faced other drawbacks. Some needed cables for operation, while others required extra infrastructure—antennas and relays—to relay acoustic signals for location. The team behind uWare brought a different approach: real-time localization and mapping using cameras, enabling autonomous guidance. This technology mirrors principles familiar from land-based robots, such as the advanced vacuum cleaning robots, yet it had not been deployed underwater until now .
Even more notable, uOne operates without a pilot. It is fully autonomous, carrying out its tasks with no direct human input. Of course, at present it cannot stream footage in real time; data and video are saved for later download .
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The first commercial applications the company envisions involve safeguarding protected marine reserves, territories where monitoring has long been a logistical nightmare. “Divers typically check these areas once a year, and that’s about it. With uOne, weekly monitoring becomes feasible, enabling early detection of issues that could affect these ecosystems,” notes a co-founder. The company has already completed a pilot in Tenerife, where it mapped sebadales and delineated their extents .
uOne is designed to collect more than video. The plan includes additional sensors that capture water quality metrics, pH levels, and other environmental data to broaden its utility. Looking ahead, the team intends to integrate new capabilities that assist surface tasks while augmenting underwater activities .
Beyond monitoring protected zones, the company envisions opportunities in offshore renewable energy facilities—wind farms located at sea, where monitoring and control are increasingly important as the push to decarbonize intensifies .
In any case, the team maintains an open mindset about possibilities. Just as aerial drones take on more tasks every year, the underwater siblings of these machines are expected to expand their scope and impact in the future .