Researchers use robotics to better understand sperm whales

Vessel strikes are among the largest threats to whales today, with some researchers estimating that they kill or injure thousands of whales each year. However, keeping track of pods of whales, which can swim anywhere from 75 to 140 miles a day depending on the species, is no easy task.

Researchers at Project CETI, which stands for Cetacean Translation Initiative, are trying to make tracking sperm whales possible. At the same time, the team of people from around the world is gathering data that could help it begin to decode the whales’ vocalizing.

Two aspects of Project CETI’s recent work earned it 2025 RBR50 recognition. The first is the technology it used to create tags that would be able to gather information while humanely adhering to the whales. The second is the system of robots and AI models the team uses to place and retrieve these tags.

The CETI team doesn’t have any room for error when it comes to tagging these whales. The Dominica-based organization’s core philosophy is to never break the skin or draw blood. Instead, it uses bio-inspired suction cups modeled after other marine creatures to adhere to and release from the whale’s skin for eventual retrieval.

To retrieve these suction cups, the researchers use aerial drones with very high frequency (VHF) signal sensing capability that use signal phase along with the drone’s motion to emulate an “antenna array in the air” for estimating the direction of pings from CETI’s on-whale tags.

To better track the whales, the team developed the Autonomous Vehicles for Whale Tracking And Rendezvous by Remote Sensing, or AVATARS framework. AVATARS is the first co-development of VHF sensing and reinforcement learning decision-making for maximizing the rendezvous of robots and whales at sea.

Explore the RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards 2025. A customized off-the-shelf drone flying to deploy a whale tag developed by Project CETI researchers. | Source: Project CETI