The underwater robot removes the debris you can see and the hidden stuff you cannot.

FORBES: iRobot Cleans Your World -- Floors, Gutters, and Pool. What's Next?

The Tyr also deploys a tethered underwater robot called Scorpion 21.

BBC: Hunt on for explorer's lost plane

Dr Paxton has eschewed sonar detectors, underwater cameras and robot submarines in favour of an entirely different method of detection: statistics.

ECONOMIST: Statistics

In the early underwater scenes, when a robot-cam pokes around the wreck of the "Titanic, " with Bill Paxton and his team of hipster techies hovering in anticipation, the ocean debris flies right out at the audience.

CNN: Review: 'Titanic 3D' is a work of art

With this in mind Dr Hover and Mr Englot, along with a team of colleagues, used a robot known as the Hovering Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (HAUV), which was developed at MIT and has since been commercialised by a company called Bluefin Robotics.

ECONOMIST: Monitor

Current applications for Superbot are being developed with space exploration in mind, but Shen said the technology could be usefully applied in any environment dangerous to humans such as for search and rescue tasks in mines or underwater -- although the laboratory is still working on a morphing robot capable of swimming.

CNN: Robotics discovers its soft side

Development of the robot, nicknamed Robojelly, is in the early stages but researchers hope it could eventually be used in underwater rescue operations.

BBC: Robotic jellyfish fuelled by hydrogen invented