Lübecks university has several projects[1] using swarms of robots for automatic cartography, water measurements and such.
Autonomous accurate navigation under water is quite complicated, because after a certain point you need to start relying on local sensors because nothing reaches you anymore. But local sensors tend to be weird, because a straight line underwater is not necessarily a straight line - you are most likely drifting -- and detecting drift isn't easy. From a local observer, the water around you isn't even moving. That was a fun team to talk with.
Autonomous accurate navigation under water is quite complicated, because after a certain point you need to start relying on local sensors because nothing reaches you anymore. But local sensors tend to be weird, because a straight line underwater is not necessarily a straight line - you are most likely drifting -- and detecting drift isn't easy. From a local observer, the water around you isn't even moving. That was a fun team to talk with.
1: https://www.iti.uni-luebeck.de/en/research-areas/mobile-robo...