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:

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.

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."