Tiny Autonomous Submersible

dAzED1 writes "The BBC is reporting that Australian researchers have built a 40cm, self-controlling submarine that can dive to 5,000 meters. It's small enough that there is concern it could simply be eaten, or worse, used by the military. My question is, at 1 m/s, how does it get to 5km before the 1-day battery dies?"

Comments

What's next?

[Engineer-Poet]

Keeping in mind that the little ship is good for "up to" a day (at what speed?) and that it would take 3 hours to get to depth and back at its top speed, how long will it take the makers to give it droppable ballast weights? You'd need two; one to ballast the positively-buoyant ship to neutral, and a second to give it extra weight to sink to depth without using its motors (thus saving the battery). Bonus points for using the weight to power a glide to points of interest instead of descending straight down.

If hungry sea creatures are a problem, use some of that battery power to shock them, or shotgun-shell primers to scare them off.

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[Time_Ngler]

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