Autonomous Ocean-Crossing Robots Launched

Robotics Science
Autonomous Ocean-Crossing Robots Launched

Here’s a clip of Liquid Robotics founder and CTO Roger Hine talking, at the most recent Bay Area Maker Faire, about the innovative design of his company’s Wave Glider robot boat, which converts the up-and-down motion of waves at the surface into energy for propulsion. More technical details are available on Liquid Robotics’ site.

YouTube player

On November 17, Liquid Robotics launched four Wave Gliders from San Francisco, and are currently streaming data from several on-board instruments, at a resolution of one or two reports per minute, in near-real-time, via the Iridium satellite network. Those data are freely available here.

All four Wave Gliders are bound for Hawaii, where they will split into two pairs, one of which will head to Japan, and the other to Australia. IEEE Spectrum is reporting that Liquid Robotics “aims to break the Guinness world record for longest unmanned ocean voyage” with the trip, though I have not been able to confirm that Guinness actually has such a record currently established, nor what it may be. [Thanks, Glen!]

More:
Record-vying transatlantic robot submarine at sea

6 thoughts on “Autonomous Ocean-Crossing Robots Launched

  1. Roy Hanfling says:

    the potential for smugglers is immense

    1. Dennis Mabrey says:

      The Open Source Smugger’s kit…   I see a new potential market here   ;-)

  2. Michelle Arsht Stiennon says:

    perhaps if the architects sat on gold thrones, the project costs could be increased. maybe. It is a very cool idea, for some veery special building projects – military and scientific come to mind.

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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