Robot wranglers

Move over, Nancy Drew. The Case of the Vanishing Robot calls for Blue Hens.

At least it did earlier this fall, when an autonomous underwater vessel (AUV) lost its GPS signal and disappeared somewhere along the edge of the Delaware Bay and Atlantic Ocean.

As part of a larger fleet belonging to mechanical engineering professor Bert Tanner, the device helps conduct coordinated measurements of water salinity and temperature, data that can have major implications on our understanding of environmental health, resource management and ecosystem stability.