China’s self-developed unmanned autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) Qianlong-2 accomplished its first undersea exploration on January 10, 2016.

Independently developed by Shenyang Institute of Automation, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the 4500-meter AUV dived to a depth of 1600 meters in the hydrothermal area of the Indian Ocean. It explored the seabed and collected high-precision hydrological data without any cable control.