View From Under Water
When I say the word robot the odds are good that you picture something that looks a little bit like a human. Sure, it might have a boxy torso or tube arms, but the odds are good that you still see something with a pair of arms and a pair of legs. Robots however can take many forms, and today’s news is about a robot boat.
DARPA is developing a submarine detecting boat that will be able to run
for months at a time without human intervention and help to protect
large naval ships from foreign attack using a variety of sensors and a
new laser system.The robot, which is still under development, is
projected to be hitting the harbor sometime next year.
The ship, which has been dubbed the Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel or ACTUV for short, is designed to help detect submarines under the water. For now the boat has no weapons on board, just a set of laser detectors that are designed to work in concert with a radar and a sonar detector.
The unmanned vessel would run for two to three months without assistance. The project has been funded to the tune of about $58 million by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The folks over at DARPA hope to have the ship ready to get on the waters by the middle of 2015.
Image Source: DARPA
