Summer is officially here with an incident that makes me think of the movie Jaws. A shark attacked a Wave Glider robot from Liquid Robotics, while out at sea.
The robots have logged over 150,000 miles at sea and this is the first shark attack. Basically the shark slowed the robot down, so the robot phoned home. When Liquid Robots got the call, the told the robot to come home and saw the bite marks.
Link via (Treehugger)
Wave Glider diagram from Liquid Robotics
Wave Glider is a self sufficient robot that can be used to monitor the ocean. Made by Liquid Robotics, the robot has 2 main parts. One part floats on the surface of the ocean and the second part is attached and floats underwater. The floating part is Float: 208 cm x 60 cm while the glider part is 40 cm x 191 cm with a wingspan of 191 cm.
Recently Liquid Robotics raised it’s first round of funding, getting a $22 million investment, partially from VantagePoint Capital Partners.
The Wave Glider uses a combination of solar panels and wave motion to move forward. The robot uses no fuel, but has made long voyages over 2,500 miles. The robot can also transmit real time signals via satellite ans is capable of carrying various payloads and sensors. Waypoints can be programmed as a course for the robot to follow and it’s progress can be monitored online.
Watch the Wave Glider in action after the break.
Tags: Liquid Robotics, ocean, robotics
Two robots from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute called REMUS & REMORA have found the downed airplane from Air France and recovered the flight recorder or black box.
Two years ago Air France flight 447 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean during a storm. What caused the crash is not really known, but now that the black box has been found, hopefully it will give investigators a clue.
The robots or AUVs (Autonomous Underwater Vehicles), have a wide array of sensors and can go up to 6,000 feet deep. Shown here is the Remus 6000. Also see the NOVA Flight 447 episode.
via (Boing Boing)
A group called Polar Oceans Research Group along with people from Rutgers University, The University of Delaware and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo are working to track penguins with glider type robots.
Specifically, the researchers are tracking Adelie Penguins to see why there numbers are dropping rapidly. Climate change is one reason the penguin population is declining. Another reason could be that the krill they eat is not so plentiful.
Adelie Penguins live only on Antartica and surrounding ice flows and primarily eat krill along with some fish. Leopard seals are there primary predators.
A specific pair of adult penguins are selected and one of them has a transmitter carefully placed on their back that will later naturally come off during the molt cycle. The transmitter and penguins are followed and plotted in Google Earth.
Then the researchers plot a course for the robot gliders. In this case they use either Remus AUVs or Slocum Electric Gliders (shown here). The Coastal Ocean Observation Lab or COOL has a history of using these gliders and in 2009 sent the Scarlet Knight glider all the way to Spain from New Jersey.
The gliders can travel vast distances and move forward by shifting ballast and moving in a slow down and up motion while underwater. They then surface periodically to transmit their data back to home base. The gliders are able to better track the penguins and provide more information than just a transmitter attached to the penguins. Let’s hope the researchers with the help of the robots discover why the penguins are dying. Click through for a quick video of the adorable penguins.
Thanks to Caitlin for additional penguin information.
Link (Zoo Penguins) via (Ocean Bytes Blog) via (Wired)
Tags: Adelie penguins, antartica, AUV, slocum glider
Bluefin Robotics, makers of AUV’s (Autonomous Underwater Vehicles) was recently awarded a $30 million contract for HULS ( Explosive Ordnance Disposal Hull Unmanned Underwater Vehicle Localization Systems) by The Naval Surface Warfare Center.
David Kelly, president of Bluefin Robotics stated,
We are looking forward to the opportunity to leverage the work done on the HAUV and under our other underwater systems programs for this important U.S. Navy requirement,
Shown here is Bluefin Robotics’s HAUV 2 person portable hull inspection robot. The company will produce a version of this robot that has a manipulator arm for removing objects like mines or bombs. The current version of HAUV weighs 174 pounds and using a lithium polymer battery pack, can last for 3 1/2 hours at a time with a standard payload and no current in the water.
HAUV also has a fiber optic Ethernet tether for real time communications and imaging sonar. The battery pack and 4 gig memory card are easily swappable to keep the missions going when out in the field.
Tags: AUV, Bluefin Robotics
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