The BluE project delivered the first open and modular technological ecosystem dedicated to Underwater Legged Robotics (ULR), positioning Europe at the forefront of this emerging field. The project’s main outcome, the Open Toolkit for Underwater Robotics, integrates mechanical, electronic, and software designs under open licenses, enabling rapid prototyping, reproducibility, and collaborative development. This open platform significantly lowers the entry barrier for marine robotics research and education, fostering innovation across academia and industry.
BluE also achieved a major advance in simulation by releasing silver2_gz and silver2_stonefish, the first publicly available environments capable of modeling legged locomotion and hydrodynamics underwater. These tools bridge the gap between simulation and field experimentation, supporting the development of reinforcement learning–based control and cooperative autonomy for multi-robot missions.
At the application level, BluE demonstrated a new concept of mobile–fixed observatory integration, combining a crawler robot with the OBSEA cabled observatory for autonomous visual monitoring of the seafloor. This approach enhances spatial coverage and data continuity in benthic ecosystems, providing a foundation for future contributions to the Digital Twin of the Ocean initiative.
To ensure further uptake, next steps include long-term field demonstrations, scaling the open toolkit to new robot platforms, and integrating AI-based decision-making for extended autonomy. The open dissemination of results, together with active collaboration in European initiatives such as MERLIN, SUN-BIO, and DIGI4ECO, will accelerate adoption, standardization, and sustainable exploitation of BluE technologies across scientific, industrial, and policy domains
