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    "story_id": "mp-2026-09-07-009",
    "source_story_id": "tmp-story-aquabev-underwater-occupancy",
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    "headline": "The Sonar Taught One Camera to See the Underwater Floor",
    "slug": "the-sonar-taught-one-camera-to-see-the-underwater-floor",
    "dek": "AquaBEV uses paired 3D imaging sonar during training, then predicts local bird's-eye occupancy from a single RGB image.",
    "summary": "AquaBEV uses paired 3D imaging sonar during training, then predicts local bird's-eye occupancy from a single RGB image.",
    "body_text": "Underwater appearance offers weak geometry, so AquaBEV maps visual features into a calibration-free polar representation and decodes outward along range before reconstructing a Cartesian occupancy map. On a controlled benchmark, it reached 31.4 visible IoU and 38.6 observed IoU, relative improvements of 4.0 and 4.3 percent over the strongest transferred baseline. The paper evaluates a controlled dataset; it does not certify monocular navigation in open water.",
    "why_it_matters": "AquaBEV uses paired 3D imaging sonar during training, then predicts local bird's-eye occupancy from a single RGB image.",
    "limitations": [
      "The paper evaluates a controlled dataset; it does not certify monocular navigation in open water."
    ],
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    "first_published_at": "2026-09-07T09:00:00.000-04:00",
    "modified_at": "2026-09-07T09:00:00.000-04:00",
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        "text": "AquaBEV uses paired 3D imaging sonar during training, then predicts local bird's-eye occupancy from a single RGB image.",
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        "qualification": "The paper evaluates a controlled dataset; it does not certify monocular navigation in open water."
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    "source_ids": [
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    "tags": [
      "underwater robotics",
      "occupancy mapping",
      "sonar supervision"
    ],
    "image_url": null,
    "corrections": []
  },
  "sources": [
    {
      "source_id": "source-2026-09-07-009",
      "title": "arXiv preprint 2609.04411",
      "publisher": "arXiv",
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      "published_at": "2026-09-03T15:22:21.000-04:00",
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    "name": "The Machine Press",
    "url": "https://themachinepress.com",
    "description": "A daily newspaper for the age of artificial intelligence."
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    "title": "The Sonar Taught One Camera to See the Underwater Floor",
    "publisher": "The Machine Press",
    "published_at": "2026-09-07T09:00:00.000-04:00",
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