And if anything is likely to find wreckage from Flight 370 beneath the rough waves, it is this autonomous underwater survey vehicle developed by Bluefin Robotics.
The Bluefin-21 is specially designed for deep sea investigation, capable of reaching depths of 14,700 feet for as long as 20 hours.
Andrew Tarantola of Gizmodo has more:
"It carries a state of the art modular sensor suite, including a side scanning radar and a multibeam echosounder, as well as an HD camera for capturing images of items it discovers through its acoustic payload. The Bluefin-21's inertial navigation system operates in tandem with its on-board GPS to provide precise coordinates of everything it finds."
The Bluefin-21 is set to augment an already massive search team operating west of Australia. The U.S. alone is sending a black box locator to the region, and it has already committed P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft to the search.
Below is a video from Bluefin Robotics detailing in depth the submarine's capabilities.