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The World's Biggest Undersea Robot
Roland Piquepaille writes "According to redOrbit.com, companies installing subsea cables for telecommunications companies and pipelines for the oil industry now have a new tool, the UT-1 Ultra Trencher which is the world's biggest subsea robot. This beauty weighs 60 tons (out of the water) and has a length of 7.8 meters, a width of 7.8 meters and a height of 5.6 meters. In fact, it has the dimensions of a small house but is more expensive, carrying a price tag of about £10 million. It can move at a speed of 2 to 3 knots under the sea. And it can trench pipelines with a 1-meter diameter in deep waters of up to 1,500 meters."
...it does NOT run Linux.
How well can it repair pipelines? That's important as well.
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Robots have at least some degree of autonomy. This is a bad-ass RC vehicle.
Our future overlords are increasingly unimpressed with us taking their name in vain.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
The Open UT-1 Ultra Trencher project announced that it has been accepted to Google's Summer of Code. Prospective students must have access to their own UT-1 to be considered.
There's a picture on ZDNET's page.
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
Since the linked article is a bit light on them:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=870
Spec sheet here (PDF 917KB)
The Mothership
There are a huge number of undersea cables and pipes that currently reside on the surface of the ocean floor. How will they be affected by this device?
Furthermore, even if the "water knife" does not damage existing infrastructure, it will still be there when you go to run your new cable. Unless you manage to thread your cable under it somehow, there will be points where it will be exposed above the soil where it junctions with existing cable. Perhaps that's an acceptable issue today, but in a century when we have millions of miles of fiber-optics undersea, it may not.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
:wq
Maybe it has a bumper sticker that says "We Stop For No One".
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
... for mechaGodzilla.
Is it just me or does that look like it came right out of the movie The Abyss? It looks like a yellow, miniature version of their habitat. I'm sure the MPAA is working on their patent lawsuit.
Remember about a month or so ago, all those undersea cables cut. Seemed far too coincidental for so many to be cut at one. Now someone unveils a machine to bury them to keep them protected! A motive me thinks, creating demand for their product?
I'm taking my gang over there in my VW microbus right now to unmask the cable cutting ghost as old man Jones, the creepy submarine maker.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
Wife: Aww, you're gonna be out a couple days working again?
You: Yep, I'll be out laying pipe.
This story is worthless
Well, I've been waiting for it and haven't seen it yet. So I'm just gonna get it out of the way and be done with it.... I for one welcome our Underseas Robotic Overlords. Now, back to our topic! By the way, thanks to the fellow/gal who posted the link to the picture!
Only the really big, evil, greedy types can afford this sort of thing - like oil companies and the telcos... I am sure they wouldn't spend money on expensive stuff like this just to deliver the goods people want, nah, I am sure they are more into the environmental aspects of digging up the ocean floor for fun and profit.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Grandma is protected at the bottom of the ocean.
John
In 1980 Brown & Root, Inc. built a sub sea trencher called the MUT. This ROV rode on dual tractor treads. Here is its astounding specs: length = 50ft, width 40ft, weight= 135 short tons.
Good, now send it to Europa where it can do some history making work.
...and the first thing we decided to build was Cable Guy...
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Current undersea trenching is done using plows pulled by ships. I highly doubt that even this large robot is going to be able to match the power of a 60,000 ton ship pulling a plow. And considering the need to dig fairly deep below the seabed in order to protect from wayward anchors and fishing nets, I have to question the usefulness of this robot. It might be useful for smaller, brown-water cables where you need the protection but can't afford to hire a ship to plow the trench, but the big ocean-spanning cables probably won't use this robot.
I'll be impressed when the robots start modifying their trenches to be more aesthetically pleasing to other robots, and then they start publishing Robot Trenching Review and Dig Your Own Trench periodicals.
Since this is a ship, they're probably using displacement tons, which is neither mass nor force. It measures Volume of water it displaces.
Deep, dark, and wet. is itt a thruster or an auger, a tapper or a slapper?
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"