Solar-Powered Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

sunhou writes "A couple of months ago, researchers tested a solar-powered autonomous underwater vehicle (SAUV) at RPI's Darrin Fresh Water Institute. (More pictures and links to info available at the Autonomous Undersea Systems Institute.) Current autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) need to be taken out of the water often to have their batteries recharged. The goal is to have groups of cooperating SAUVs loaded with sensors and networking equipment deployed on long-term monitoring missions. Watch out Sky-Net, here comes Sea-Net! (See also the recent story about The Argo Project.)"

Comments

Perhaps someone should tell them

[Anonymous Coward]

That it's dark underwater.

Re:Perhaps someone should tell them

[Capt'n Hector]

Just as dolphins and whales need to go to the surface once in a while to breathe, this thing probably can dive deep, but needs to surface every once in a while to recharge.

Re:Perhaps someone should tell them

[4-D4Y]

It would be economically beneficial to mine the ocean floor. It may be more useful to have mining vehicles transduce heat from their surroundings into electricity. This would give mankind incentive to destroy otherwise prisitine deep sea vents.

There missions must not go very deep.

[andywebz]

I guess all of their missions and exploration will be very close to the surface. Unless there is some underwater solar energy source I'm unaware of.

Re:There missions must not go very deep.

[TooMuchEspressoGuy]

No one's saying that it has to remain hundreds of feet below the waves at all times. They could easily program the vehicle to surface, recharge itself via solar energy, and go back down again.

Re:There missions must not go very deep.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

It is still pretty slow. Even at the surface, solar power isn't very efficient in terms of cost or energy conversion, and below water, it takes a LOT of power to move about. Cheaper than replacing batteries manually? I suppose it would be. It would be good for very long term projects, I suppose.

Re:There missions must not go very deep.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is an underwater energy source, but it's not solar. More like thermo. Perhaps they should become hybrids and convert heat into energy.

Re:There missions must not go very deep.

[BlowChunx]

If you are only slightly heavier than the surrounding water, and shaped like a wing, then gliding slowly down to depth is not energy intensive.

When you reach the depth you want, pump the ballast out (or use electrolysis to make gas?) and slowly rise to the surface, again gliding slowly upwards.

With the yo-yo glider technique, you can cover huge areas.

All jokes aside

[Icarus1919]

All jokes aside about it being dark underwater, this is going to be very helpful for research in large bodies of water. They can put a UAV with sensors and movement devices in say the Pacific and monitor the surface areas for long periods of time without ever needing to go back and "fill 'er up". We'll be able to monitor pollution levels, surface temperatures, ocean currents, all sorts of things much more efficiently.

Re:All jokes aside

[mark-t]

Actually, This person is.

(Mod -3 off-topic, overrated, troll)

How can I misread one stupid word?

[gardyloo]

Anyone else see that as "Solar-Powered Autonomous Underwear Vehicles"? 'cause, at least for me, that's talking about a spot where the sun don't normally shine...

Drug Smugglers

[Anonymous Coward]

So just how long will it be till Columbian drug smugglers use autonmous vehicles to bring over loads of cocaine? Sounds like an easy way for them to get loads through without worrying about people getting busted if they are caught.

Re:Drug Smugglers

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Many of the drug dealers probably don't worry about people getting busted, since people are expendable. They worry about losing the drugs, which can still happen with an autonomous vehicle.

Autonomous?

[TooMuchEspressoGuy]

"Current autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) need to be taken out of the water often to have their batteries recharged."

Well, then they're not exactly autonomous, are they?

Re:Autonomous?

[Council]

All joking aside, the "autonomous" means it isn't getting controlled constantly by people watching the video feedback, which is usually the case.

I've built a few subersibles to do lake-bottom surveys in New England that were basically glorified radio-controlled cars, and from what I understand that's basically how the Titanic-exploring bots worked. There's been some absolutely fascinating talk about building an army of small subs like the ones in this story that can survey automatically, giving us -- finally -- a decent seafloor map.

And the potential -- imagine locating every single shipwreck of every ship that sunk throughout history. I mean, that's a little bit of a stretch, but you get the idea. So I'm glad to see this step in the right direction.

Delivery vehicles

[idolcrash]

Wouldn't it be possible to collect the solar energy at the surgace, and send the energy through a cable down to the AUV? This assumes that they are already controlled by signals sent through cables, however, and I'm not sure if remote controls are used or what, but it seems a bit more effective (as far as I can tell) then collecting light under the sea (as is implied).

Of course, then there is the problem of a shark or other large animal running into the cable (hopefully, if it is remote controlled, it will be able to resurface in time, or some mechanism can be put in place to detect a cable break and automatically surface).

Nuclear Energy!

[eln]

I think for long-term underwater exploration, nuclear is the most practical way to go. A nuclear power source can last indefinitely underwater (depending on how much fuel you have) and is not dependent on the weather if and when it does surface.

Re:Nuclear Energy!

[koick]

As a scientist who has used an AUV in the Antarctic, I can assure you we would not want to mess with the bureaucracy/logistics of nuclear power. Some big battery packs and no demands for the vehicle to move fast are all one needs really to collect some very interesting sub-surface data.

Not to mention...

[wasted]

..the difficulty with radio transmissions. The article mentions networking to transmit the data. If underwater networking was easy, the US Navy wouldn't have used ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) systems to control their submarines.

The really cool auv

[Camel Pilot]

Imagine an auv that collects its energy from plankton? It is great idea and I would like to patent it but I think there may be some prior art on this idea. :(

Uh-oh

[Dekks]

Just don't let captain Murphy get his hands on it...

buoyancy power!

[linoleo]

Why bother with solar panels and propellers? A buoyancy glider powered from temperature gradients is far more efficient. And you can use it where the sun don't shine, even off-planet.

Catching these

[wooby]

I can see nerds getting involved in the outdoors once again, bringing a whole new meaning to "phishing" - rigging up Zodiacs with networked fishfinder arrays and catching for themselves the latest in autonomous underwater robot technology.

Hell, I'd steal one.

I could slap Linux on it, make its hostname a Douglas Adams character, and brag on a mailing list somewhere.

Shh..

[kristopher]

It actually runs on the pent up sexual angst of slashdot users.

alternative to solar.. uh... water power?

[radarsat1]

i wonder if it's possible to engineer something that would have them continuously recharge from the movement of the undersea water currents..