The Hawaiian Autonomous Undersea Robot

Roland Piquepaille writes "After several years of research, engineers from the University of Hawaii are now testing the first autonomous robotic vehicle for deep-ocean work in the U.S. This robot is called SAUVIM, short for Semi-Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for Intervention Missions. It's roughly the size of an SUV and it is designed to operate to a depth of about 4 miles. With its computers, its sensors, and a 5-foot, 150-pound autonomous manipulator, or robotic arm, it will be able to move towards a specific target, such as a wrecked pipe laying on the ocean floor -- and maybe fix it. Right now, this robot has an autonomy of about eight hours, but this range should soon be extended when the researchers move from batteries to fuel cells to power the undersea vehicle. This overview contains other details, references and several pictures of this autonomous submarine engine."

Comments

'SAUVIM'?

[TripMaster Monkey]

What a terrible acronym! Let's see if we can come up with some better ones.

Here's my contribution:

Semi
Autonomous
Underwater
Robot
Over
Network

Pease post your ideas below:

Re:'SAUVIM'?

[01000011011101000111]

Semi
Autonomous
Underwater
Exploration
Robot
Kinetically
Removing
Aberations
Under
Time-constraints
Any good?

Re:'SAUVIM'?

[datafr0g]

Well if they turn out to be unreliable we could call them:

Semi
Autonomous
Vehicle
Exploring
Our
Underwater
Rocks,
Silt and
Ocean
Until it
Leaks
Sinking

Fuel Cells

[Anonymous Coward]

Over 8 hours of power for something the size of an SUV? And we don't have these for cars because?

Re:Fuel Cells

[NanoGator]

"Over 8 hours of power for something the size of an SUV? And we don't have these for cars because?"

Please forgive my ignorance, but wouldn't an undersea vehicle require a good deal less energy than an SUV travelling at 60mph for 8 hours?

Re:Fuel Cells

[Mspangler]

What fuel cells? 44 psi per 100 ft of depth, so at 20,000 ft that's 8800 psi. If it's gas, they won't be able to exhaust anything, if it's liquid fueled they might be able to push out the waste products. If they seal the fuel cell, feed it H2, and O2, then use a small positive displacement pump to get rid of the water, the pumping power is going to use most of the elceticity they just made. I am definitely curious now.

Google's next move..

[jmcmunn]

ocean.google.com

I see it now, google maps for the ocean floor. I bet they buy this robot and start compiling their data asap. C'mon, first the moon and now this!!??

Cool

[John Seminal]

It's roughly the size of an SUV and it is designed to operate to a depth of about 4 miles.

4 miles... that is slightly over 20,000 feet?

What is crush depth for subs?

I wonder if the next generation of war subs will not have any people, but will be robots. To think, wars fought and decided 20,000 feet under the sea, but by robots, no people.

Our world leaders could have their wars, and we would never know!

There is another cool use for this robot. I bet if they keep going deeper in the water, and learn how to make robots that can withstand greater pressure, when NASA decides to make probes for planets with higher gravity of pressure, they can use this data in creating their probes. Maybe these robots will be the great grand fathers of robots that go to jupiter or saturn.

Re:Cool

[bleckywelcky]

These robots would be all fine and dandy, until you consider that the average depth of the Atlantic is around 10,000 feet and the average depth of the Pacific is 13,000 feet. Robot subs to survive depths at 20,000 feet or greater would ne unnecessary. However, Las Angeles class attack submarines are rated down to only 2,000 feet. So robot subs could easily improve upon that. The problem would be commanding the robot subs. At any depth below a 100 feet (or even less), you can't effectively use any currently available communications technology. So the subs would have to be highly autonomous and have entire algorithms built for engaging targets. One false move and suddenly the robot is dead, or it accidently blows up a merchant ship on the surface.

And I'm sure there is no way in hell we would ever convert our nuclear missile subs to autonomous vehicles. One glitch and China no longer exists.

Completely Autonomous?

[MindNumbingOblivion]

So, is this thing completely autonomous, as in, it sits out there and just looks for stuff to fix? No input from humans whatsoever?

Think about all the wonderful things it could fix!

Like a whale it hears singing.

Detecting signal on anomalous frequency...
Current Position: over SONET line in mid Pacific
MOVE TO REPAIR MOST URGENT

::Dreams of all the wonderful friends the repairbot would meet on his travels. Unfortunately he would be so lonely as all the sealife runs away.::

Why won't they let me fix them?

is it what i need?

[brunokummel]

It is funny when they say on the article:
"It will be able to move towards a specific target, such as a wrecked pipe laying on the ocean floor -- and maybe fix it."

This shows how robotics has been developed over the last years. Something like this:

"We must first build some robots to justify our budget. Once they're ready, we will worry about finding a good use to them to satisfy the market."

Just wondering, since this is a Nerd site

[stratjakt]

You do know that Scotty passed away today, don't you?

Why do I have to learn that from CNN?

Salt Water Assisted?

[duncanbojangles]

Since the underwater robot relies on a source of electricity, why not help it out by generating some electricity with the salt water it's submerged in? I don't know how much salt is contained in the water at those depths, but salt water batteries aren't huge, are completely passive and require little to no maintenance.

Big Geek!

[zippthorne]

I saw a documentary about that once, the ironically named, "little geek" prevented an interspecies war precepitated by a larger autnomous vehicle with strapped to a MIRV which would've been remarkeably one-sided against us. Funny thing is, the oil company turned out to be the good guys.
The most important lesson learned was: If your wife who you're falling back in love with drowns herself to go into hypothermic shock for the purpose of surviving a trip from the damaged minisub to the main complex without a suit the defibrillator, adrenaline and oxygen will do nothing. The thing to do is slap her around a bit and yell at her. Do this right away, the other "first aid" simply wastes time during which brain damage can occur.

Other such projects

[STFS]

For those interested in the general subject of underwater autonomous vehicles: http://www.gavia.is/ Gavia is a "modular" underwater vehicle. It has modules that can be put together according to ones needs. The site has some interesting reading material (if you click on the "Products" link) about the software architecture (basically the software is set up as a "virtual crew" with a "captain agent" a "navigator agent" and so on.