Engineers from MBARI’s  CoMPAS Lab  recently returned from an expedition to the Arctic, where they deployed the  MOLA AUV  under the ice for the first time, marking a major milestone in the development of this nimble technology platform. This fieldwork offshore of Utqiagvik (Barrow), Alaska, was funded by the North Pacific Research Board and conducted with collaborators from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management, and Michigan Technological University. The expedition team worked closely with local partners under demanding Arctic conditions to conduct high-resolution mapping surveys of the seafloor. The MOLA AUV—multimodality, observing, low-cost, agile autonomous underwater vehicle—is a portable robot that can be operated autonomously or controlled by a pilot.…