newscientisttech.com— A fleet of 100 robotic submarines could in five years' time be roaming the vast unexplored stretches of the world's seafloors and helping unlock their mysteries.
Sep 28, 2006View in Crawl 4
That estimate of "up to 100" is wildly pessimistic. If you take a look at the current batch of AUVs they're not bleeding edge engineering so they aren't very expensive even in early, hand-made, developmental form. The information they gather though is almost unobtainable any other way and certainly not at the cost that the information can be gathered using the AUVs. So, geologists, oceanographers, meteorologists and biologists are all going to want these gadgets going on missions for them. Demand ought to knock prices down and the scientific community isn't the only potential customer base. All the world's treasure hunters will want a couple of them, especially if they can mount side-scanning sonar and magnetic anomaly detection equipment. The military will want them for a variety of reasons not the least of which being that you could have an underwater minefield deliver itself and simply be there one morning. No aircraft, no submarines and no surface ships needed. You might be able to even set the minefield to go away after a while or on command.And then there's the flip side. AUVs could operate as autonomous mine-clearing robots.You could tracking pelagic and migratory species that currently just disappear only to reappear months later and thousands of miles away and not a clue what they were doing in the mean time.
ecable - "The oceans are one of the most unexplored parts of our world; it will be awesome to have a better way to collect information about them!"This is total bulls**t. Navy (both USA and Russa) have had them mapped since the middle of the cold war. Lets just hope the pentagon doesn't kill this project in hopes that it remains a state secret.Viva La Information!
irimiSep 29, 2006
Thanks, science.
datastorageguySep 29, 2006
Until seanet becomes self aware and decides to launch a nuclear strike on it's makers....
arpadSep 29, 2006
That estimate of "up to 100" is wildly pessimistic. If you take a look at the current batch of AUVs they're not bleeding edge engineering so they aren't very expensive even in early, hand-made, developmental form. The information they gather though is almost unobtainable any other way and certainly not at the cost that the information can be gathered using the AUVs. So, geologists, oceanographers, meteorologists and biologists are all going to want these gadgets going on missions for them. Demand ought to knock prices down and the scientific community isn't the only potential customer base. All the world's treasure hunters will want a couple of them, especially if they can mount side-scanning sonar and magnetic anomaly detection equipment. The military will want them for a variety of reasons not the least of which being that you could have an underwater minefield deliver itself and simply be there one morning. No aircraft, no submarines and no surface ships needed. You might be able to even set the minefield to go away after a while or on command.And then there's the flip side. AUVs could operate as autonomous mine-clearing robots.You could tracking pelagic and migratory species that currently just disappear only to reappear months later and thousands of miles away and not a clue what they were doing in the mean time.
bigtech64Sep 29, 2006
I'll bet we know more about the surface of Mars, than the floor of the ocean.
whitey04Sep 29, 2006
The usual line is "surface of the moon" but point taken.
trghpySep 29, 2006
ecable - "The oceans are one of the most unexplored parts of our world; it will be awesome to have a better way to collect information about them!"This is total bulls**t. Navy (both USA and Russa) have had them mapped since the middle of the cold war. Lets just hope the pentagon doesn't kill this project in hopes that it remains a state secret.Viva La Information!