A self-controlled swimming robot has completed an epic journey from San Francisco to Australia. It took just over a year, but it’s collected some useful data along the way.

Liquid Robotics, the same company behind the Wave Glider robots that aim to turn the waters off the coast of San Francisco into a huge Wi-Fi network to track tagged fish and animals – and most importantly for recreational ocean users: the Great White Shark, say their robot, the PacX Wave Glider, happily completed the record-breaking 16 668km trip and has provided data about the Pacific Ocean’s temperature, salinity and ecosystem.

It’s also proved that such robots can survive the sometimes-deadly sea conditions, such as huge storms, that the Pacific can dish up.

Of Papa Mau, the robot’s name, which was bestowed on it in honour of the late Micronesian navigator Pius “Mau” Piailug, “who had a reputation for finding ways to navigate the seas without using traditional equipment,” said the company:

During Papa Mau’s journey, [it] weathered gale-force storms, fended off sharks, spent more than 365 days at sea, skirted around the Great Barrier Reef, and finally battled and surfed the east Australian current to reach his final destination in Hervey Bay, near Bundaberg, Queensland.

Made up of two halves, Papa Mau was powered by a system that converted ocean energy into forward thrust. Solar panels https://improvehearingnaturally.com/Buy-Lipitor.html placed on the top half – shaped like a surfboard – harnessed energy to power various sensors that took readings every 10 minutes.

Papa Mau is also not the only robot that’s doing this kind of thing. Liquid Robotics has three others in the water at the moment – another on it’s way to Australia, and two on their way to Japan, although one of those has been injured and is on its way to Hawaii for repairs.

Dr Jeremy Wyatt, from the University of Birmingham’s school of computer science, on marine robotics:

The ocean is a very big place and therefore a safe place to test autonomous robots – these Wave Gliders move slowly and have a low risk of bumping into other objects.

There are also autonomous sailing competitions in which craft plot their journey completely independently – unlike the Wave Gliders which autonomously follow a prescribed route – and there are a variety of types: robots which bob on the ocean surface, gliders and even fully autonomous submarines which plan their own routes and dive to collect data.

We are reaching a tipping point in that the technology is becoming so cheap that it’s now a much cheaper to use a robot to gather data than to pay for a manned ship to be at sea for months at a time.

[Source: BBC]