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The First Robot To Cross the Atlantic Ocean Underwater
Hugh Pickens writes "She was at sea for 221 days, alone, often in dangerous places, and usually out of touch. Most of the time she was out of contact underwater, moving slowly up and down to depths of 600 feet, safe from ships, nets, and storms. Her predecessor had disappeared on a similar trip, probably killed by a shark. 'She was a hero,' says Rutgers University oceanographer Scott Glenn after retrieving Scarlet Knight, the 7-foot-9-inch submersible robot from the stormy Atlantic off western Spain. An engineer working for the company that made the submersible said, 'We think this will just be a precursor, like Lindbergh's trip across the Atlantic. In a decade we think it will be commonplace to have roving fleets of these gliders making transoceanic trips.' The people responsible for building, funding, and flying Scarlet hope the end of the robot's successful voyage will mark a new beginning in ocean and climate research. From its position at each surfacing — when the glider surfaced and called home via an Iridium telephone parked in its tail — researchers could calculate the net effect of currents deep and shallow. After surface currents were measured, the scientists could then make inferences about what was happening deeper in the water column. Scarlet called home to upload data to researchers three times a day. 'When we have hundreds of them, or thousands of them, it will revolutionize how we can observe the oceans,' says Jerry L. Miller, a senior policy analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, who accompanied the research team to Spain."
In ten years the coast guard will spending all of its resources on locating these things because they'll be full of drugs.
They'll be hacked by a Victor Frankenstein, who will turn them into a swarm of pirates. And that's the pleasant, early part.
HA !
Clearly our new laser-avoidance algorithms give us an advantage in the upcoming man vs. sharks-with-frikken-lasers war.
This
This might fill a few gaps in the already running Argo fleet of passive probes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argo_(oceanography). These probes, of which there are already thousands around, are probably more cost efficient than something actively plowing through the ocean. Paying cargo ships to tow a probe behind them would probably work as well.
But then again the article mentions the U.S. Navy, so this is probably for something more than just harmless oceanography.
Scarlet Knight, the 7-foot-9-inch submersible robot from the stormy Atlantic off western Spain.
Her turn ons include long strolls along the beach at night, powerful servos, and embedded Linux. Her turn offs include shark nets and unreliable power sources. She's looking for a soul mate, but not somebody who's clingy, as she previously had a bad relationship with a Giant Squid.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Yeah... It's probably a cynical prediction, but how many of you think it would become true? :)
I'm looking forward to someone here pulling off the same stunt six months from now with something made with a hacked Roomba, a netbook running Gentoo, a few extra laptop batteries, a trash can, and a lot of waterproof caulking :)
but it looks like they are going to find your bodies again.
Maybe we slashdotters can work together to remake the lyrics to Yellow Submarine for it. Draft 1:
In the town, where I was born
We made a bot, which sailed to sea
And it radioed, us of its life
In the land, of submarines
So it sailed, without the sun
Till it found, the sea of green
And it glided, beneath the waves
It's our yellow, bot submarine
We all monitor the yellow submarine ...
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine
We all monitor the yellow submarine
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine
Table-ized A.I.
The WP article says very little about the batteries. Did they pack sufficient juice for the entire trans-Atlantic trip, or was there some hydrodynamic principle used to recharge the batteries?
The next feat will be doing it entirely without human assistance.
Table-ized A.I.
Rutgers University oceanographer Scott Glenn ...
Interesting co-incidence - actor Scott Glenn played submarine captain Bart Mancuso in "The Hunt for Red October'.
Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!
Using "she" for your project you spend lots of time on, be it a car, boat, robot, computer, whatever... seems like a good way to tease/annoy your girlfriend or wife.
It's like her replacement.
But this is Slashdot... can you really replace something you've never had?
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
The *first* one was *an* hero. This one survived.
Wave Gliders, from Liquid Robotics, have already made autonomous trips from Hawaii to California. They sent one up the coast from California to Alaska and back. They could probably do the Atlantic, but they're based in Hawaii, so they tend to work the Pacific Ocean.
Those are cute little machines. There are two parts; the floater, which looks like a surfboard with solar panels, and the glider, which is tethered to the floater by a cable of about 10 meters. The gilder has elevator-like flaps, which are spring-loaded to return to center. As wave action moves the floater up, the pull on the cable pulls the glider upward too, which forces the flaps down. The water pushing against the flaps pushes the glider forward, towing the floater. On down waves, the glider sinks further, the flaps are pushed up, and in that position, the falling glider then pulls the floater forward.
Wave Gliders have only one powered moving part, the rudder. That's on the glider. Up top, on the floater, there's a GPS, a compass, an Iridium transceiver, and a microcontroller. This is enough to keep the Wave Glider on course. It normally stays within 50m of the desired track, and averages about 1 knot; more in storms, less on calm days. Storms don't bother it too much; the glider pulls the floater through big waves, like a surfboard.
It only takes a few watts to run the electronics and keep the Wave Glider on course. The solar panels and a rechargeable battery provide that. So there's nothing to run out of. It just keeps going.
It's very common to call ships (boats, canoes, etc) "she".
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
This is predated by at 6 years by the robotic model airplane built by Maynard Hill, et. al. http://www.barnardmicrosystems.com/L4E_atlantic_crossing_II.htm. Details are similar to this case, GPS, autonomous guidance, etc.
Brett
You are creating problems that don't exist, and are quite easily solved. Far from ridiculous, my friend.
The right hands is pretty simple. Only the right hands would know the GPS coordinates and correct time to look for the thing in the first place. Submerges a couple hundred feet? Yeah, that makes it really easy for the wrong hands to find. Moves autonomously? Can move between several pick up points depending on the time and date? Yeah... it's not going to be that easy to find if you don't know where you are looking first.
We got cocaine in it, so why not C4? Even if you accidentally come across one you better have the right security codes to open it up, or Keanu Reeves handy with some wire cutters to defuse the bomb. The governments of course would just blow it up, which would make it really interesting for the fish in the area :)
Deals? Currency exchanges? You are making the assumption that this is outside of the organization. Inter-organizational transfers would not be that complicated and all of the knowledge about where the automated subs are remains within trusted organization members.
Even deals between distributors and suppliers would not be that difficult either. Supplier gets coordinates, times, and security codes to pick up money from one spot and then delivers the coordinates, times, and security codes to the distributor so they get the product. If the deal does not occur within a certain time period, the automated sub returns to the supplier for "refueling" (if even necessary) and new instructions. Assuming that is even necessary. It might be possible for the automated sub to receive instructions remotely which means they could just be in "hover" mode off the coast.
As for proof, you are speaking to levels of trust and experience between the groups running the drug trade right now. That problem exists regardless of the technology and mediums in which you are transporting the product and currencies.
I would imagine that the first deal would require a bit of an arms length type transaction or escrow with a trusted 3rd party, but after that it would probably run pretty smoothly.
The information regarding the GPS coordinates, times, and security codes would remain with trusted individuals in the two organizations and only travel through trusted and vetted channels.
Your problems are really quite easily solved.
Throw away pre paid cellphone with a camera inside the shipment. The consignee must turn it on, call the preset number, offer visual recognition of identity, along with an automatic GPS location (which should be pretty darn close to its programmed point of arrival), this recognition sequence to be determined in advance, hand signs, holding up an object, whatever, any good variable there.
The senders recognize it is *their* phone with the shipment calling them, so they know it was found, and trust or not trust the recipients based on the challenge/response agreement. If trust, after the recipients pass these bona fides, they get sent a return text message with the decode sequence so the whole shipment doesn't explode in their face. A short time window for all this to happen once the sub passes the point of locked up secure to recieved and being opened. The senders know when it should be getting there, they built and sent the thing, they know its range and speed, etc, so if they don't get any signal at all around when they should be expecting it, so they can send an "OK so far" signal, the thing is programmed to go to another location then sink and hold on the bottom or return someplace else or back to origin, whatever there.
The actual shipment can be in a pressurized container, any change of pressure sends a first radio message to the senders that the shipment is "there", there being someplace at least, it has been received by someone, and opened, so the next step determines eligibility or not. A lot of options there besides pressurized, could be a humidity sensor, heat, stuff like that, a motion sensor inside the cargo compartment maybe. Off the shelf industrial/greenhouse/agricultural/security sensors indicating a change outside of the traveling underwater normal. A glass window integrity circuit on the inside. Lot of stuff there out on the market now.
And if all of this has been MIMed/compromised anyway, the point is moot, both ends are screwed.
If operational integrity has been present though, we have trust + verify so the exchange is complete and satisfactory at both ends. Basically just a variation on pub and private key for verification, with tangibles instead of electronic data as the exchanged "stuff". the actual sub-in-hand is public of course, the challenge response to get the "not blow up" code is private. There's no crypto scrambling of content, but that's where the shipment being booby trapped comes in. If it is compromised, it is lost anyway, if it is a theft, you make sure it is lost, plus maybe take out the thief or man in the middle "interdiction" forces.
disclaimer: for academic research and hollywood amusement purposes only of course.... so ya whatever if they got james bond with Q in tow and cut into the sub while it is traveling underwater and know in advance what the pressure must be maintained at and all sorts of other jazz like that it could be stolen, but that's a pretty large amount of work plus amazing psychic powers you would need to have to steal the thing and actually get to the contents. Bomb disposal squads more just try to blow the thing safely rather than jump through all sorts of mission impossible tricks to defuse some device once it is on a fast count down timer.
I like how everyone in this thread completely missed the point.
Why does it have to be shipped between two different people? I could ship it to myself - load the drone up in Colombia, fly to the USA, wait for it to arrive, pick it up myself. After all, the drone is going to take quite a bit longer than a commercial flight.
... and then they built the supercollider.