A former NASA engineer and Byron Bae living in Queensland has invented a coral farming robot helping regenerate the reef.
Coral farming activities like feeding, cleaning and monitoring can be time consuming and repetitive, making the amount of human labour required just too high.
The Coral Husbandry Automated Raceway Machine (CHARM) is a robotic arm which can be piloted remotely, to keep young, new individual coral alive long enough to eventually become a full reef.
That coral can then be used to help regenerate the Great Barrier Reef, with CHARM aiming to use automated technology to restore the reef at scale.
According to Mr Rodan, coral reefs are flagship ecosystems, providing food, shelter and revenue to millions of people – our future depends on their survival.
Mayor Jenny Hill visited Stephen Rodan at Magnetic Island.
Oulophylia coral. Captured by CHARM
With CHARM’s robotics, machine vision, AI and easy-to-use interface, Dr Rodan said he is able to manage a number of coral polyps and reef species in his nursery.
Self-dubbed the ‘coral daddy’, Mr Rodan dreams of growing coral at a large scale, selectively breeding them for high survival rates.
Ricordea coral, captured by CHARM
Cr Jenny Hill visits Stephen Rodan at Magnetic Island.
But what really excites him is that the robot can be controlled from anywhere, meaning he can “make sure the kids are safe” and feed or clean the coral while he is away.
It also creates new remote working opportunities.
“We could go to Fiji and get those students who are becoming experts in coral biology and they could log in and provide services to people in developing nations,” Mr Rodan said.
With a Bachelor’s degree in Biological Science and a Master’s Degree in Public Health, Cr Hill was very impressed with the initiative.
Cr Hill says this work that Mr Rodan is doing is “really about years and years of research coming together,” and they need to co-operate as a group in order to scale the work Mr Rodan has already done.
The general public can get involved with CHARM and the Beyond Coral Foundation by visiting the website beyondcoral.com.