Exploring the ocean may sound exciting, and it’s certainly vital for marine research, but harsh conditions, deep water, and high costs make most marine-based tasks difficult and dangerous for humans. Autonomous vehicles can handle the job, but low-cost hardware and accessible software are essential to opening up this area of conservation.

One company pushing this work forward is MDM Team, which builds autonomous marine robots powered by Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4.

Founded as a spin-off company by professors and researchers specialising in mechatronics, robotics, and underwater vehicle design at the University of Florence, MDM Team develops robotic systems designed for underwater exploration, environmental monitoring, and industrial inspections. Their vehicles include autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) that can perform tasks like hydrographic surveys or infrastructure inspections without needing a human operator on board. Instead, the vehicles rely on sensors, sonar cameras, and onboard computing to navigate and gather data on their own.

Small robots, big challenges

Marine environments present unique engineering challenges. Vehicles need to be compact and lightweight while still processing large amounts of data from sensors and navigation systems. Power efficiency is also critical, since underwater robots often run on batteries and need to stay operational for long missions in places humans cannot easily reach to recharge them. Also sharks. We all hate sharks.

To tackle these challenges, MDM Team designed low-cost vehicles capable of autonomous operation. These can be customised depending on what the user wants to explore underwater — whether that be scientific research and environmental monitoring or defence and infrastructure inspection.

Raspberry Pi at the heart of the system

Inside each of the two vehicles developed by MDM Team (Cariddi, an ASV, and Stok, a micro-AUV) is a dual system built around Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4.

A custom carrier board connects the Compute Module to the rest of the vehicle’s hardware. This board integrates navigation systems such as GPS, and connects all of the sensors used for navigation and measurement. Raspberry Pi Compute Modules are the central nervous system of each robot, coordinating sensors, propulsion systems, and data processing all at once.

The team chose Raspberry Pi due to its compact size and energy efficiency, which are essential for underwater vehicles, as weight and power consumption directly impact buoyancy and potential mission duration. Raspberry Pi’s support for Linux was also a huge plus, giving access to endless development tools. By lowering costs using Raspberry Pi hardware, systems like these make it easier for organisations to collect valuable ocean data without needing large crews or expensive research vessels.

More marine biology with Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi has been used in many marine biology solutions before. A memorable project was Arribada Initiative’s deployment of Raspberry Pi–powered camera systems mounted on the backs of turtles to keep an eye on wildlife in their complex environment.

Penguinologists are also big fans of Arribada’s low-cost monitoring solutions. Their hardware proved capable of withstanding harsh Antarctic winters, and was found to have dutifully collected one photograph each day when they were finally serviced after three years out in the field.

Raspberry Pi in the natural world

In fact, there are so many captivating instances of Raspberry Pi powering research and conservation projects around the world that we gathered them all here and created the animation below to illustrate some of the more photogenic ones.

From bear facial recognition in Alaska and bat detection in Germany, to listening to the Bornean rainforests and measuring volcanoes in Hawaii, Raspberry Pi has been successfully deployed in countless natural environments.