Abstract— We present MARE, an autonomous airboat robot
that is suitable for exploration-oriented tasks, such as inspection
of coral reefs and shallow seabeds. The combination of this
platform’s particular mechanical properties and its powerful
software framework enables it to function in a multitude of
potential capacities, including autonomous surveillance, mapping, and
search operations. In this paper we describe two 
different exploration strategies and their implementation using
the MARE platform. First, we discuss the application of an
efficient coverage algorithm, for the purpose of achieving
systematic exploration of a known and bounded environment.
Second, we present an exploration strategy driven by surprise,
which steers the robot on a path that might lead to potentially
surprising observations.