A team of Engineering students from the University of Toronto have been developing unmanned robotic boats for environmental and bathymetric monitoring in the Arctic.
As the leads on the project, Sritejas Murugan and Will Taylor received a $5000 award from the 2025 UArctic Entrepreneurship Fund, which they will use to continue prototyping their low-cost, autonomous unmanned surface vehicles (USV). Their USVs are a catamaran-style vehicle equipped with sensors that can create high-quality data on ice melt, temperatures, water depths, and ecological shifts, and could allow researchers gather data from areas that are not accessible with traditional data collection methods.
The Promethic project aims to support Inuit and local communities, researchers, and policymakers through expanding access to near-shore and shallow Arctic waters.
The other 2025 awardees include AAVEQ Robotics and Agronomy Oy.
