Can drones and robot boats clean up our oceans?

Wind turbines generate energy.

Scientists are planning to use drones and robots to clean our oceans and repair wind turbines.

A team from the University of Bristol has teamed up with scientists from a French firm called Thales, and they'd like to use unmanned drones and robots to clean up the seas.

They want to design drones that can fix wind turbines in the middle of the ocean, where it can be dangerous to send people.

The drones would be sailed out by robotic boats that wouldn't need anyone to operate them.

Can this technology be used to clean up our oceans?

How can this help the environment?

Our oceans have lots of plastic in them that needs clearing up.

There are areas in the ocean where all the bits of plastic group together.

The idea would be to use these robot boats to spread around a large area and start the process of removing the plastic from the ocean. The project could see between 20-30 robotic boats spend months in areas in the ocean with big plastic build up.

Chris Warman from Thales said: "In five to 10 years I can see this being part of the everyday. Not just in ocean plastics, but in ocean exploration."

What is a wind turbine?

What is a wind turbine?

There are lots of wind turbines in our oceans.

These wind turbines harvest the wind, which turns the blades of the turbine to spin. This generates electricity and is fed back to countries all over the world.

They're pretty tricky to send people to if they break, so a robot boat would be really handy!

What do you think of robot boats cleaning our oceans? Let us know in the comments!