Norway plans to launch the world’s first autonomous, fully electric ship next year
The world’s first fully autonomous, fully electric commercial cargo ship will be hitting Norway’s coastal waters as early as next year.
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Water
“Seawater-drinking” battery could expand range of underwater drones
The recent acquisition of MIT spinout Open Water Power (OWP) by defence company L3 Technologies will help with the development of its innovative battery technology for a wide range of undersea applications, the company says.
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Beneath the Ice in Antarctica
To outer space and the deep ocean, add “beneath the ice” to the list of rarely charted frontiers of science exploration. There have been very few expeditions where robots dived beneath polar ice shelves to characterize and measure them. UC Davis engineering professor Alexander Forrest recently returned from one of them.
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This solar-powered device can squeeze water out of thin air
You can’t squeeze blood from a stone, but you can squeeze water from thin air — even in the driest areas of the world.
The new water harvester is made of metal organic framework crystals pressed into a thin sheet of copper metal and placed between a solar absorber (above) and a condenser plate (below).
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First deep-sea mining scheduled for 2019 – here are the bots
Canadian-based firm Nautilus Minerals Inc. plans to launch the world’s first deep sea mining operation in early 2019. The company will launch three remote-controlled mining robots off the coast of Papua New Guinea to the floor of the Bismark Sea to mine rich metal deposits.
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The ultimate angling aid: a fishing drone | The Economist
MOST pastimes nowadays involve lots of high-tech gadgets. For fishermen these range from electronic bite alarms to carbon-fibre rods, specialised clothing and tackle boxes stuffed with various odd and ends.
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Drones To Monitor Shark Activities In Australia
CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA: Drones will be used at West Australian (WA) beaches on a three month trial to monitor shark activity and spot other dangers such as rips and schools of baitfish which attract the predators.
WA state fisheries minister Joe Francis said the trial was part of the state government’s 33 million Australian dollars Shark Hazard Mitigation strategy.
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How drones could save you from drowning | ZDNet
Drones could soon become a standard life-saving tool for lifeguards and rescue teams.
Even just a few seconds in the water can mean the difference between life and death, and robots can fly much faster than people can swim. On his best day, Michael Phelps swims at 6 mph, but drones can reach speeds of 50 mph or more.
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What Drones Did for the Sky, Robot Subs Are About to Do for the Sea
The next drone revolution is happening underwater. Just as flying drones have changed from expensive specialist tools to mass-market million-sellers in a few short years, their aquatic counterparts are opening up the seas.
Unmanned submarines, known as Remotely Operated Vehicles, can regularly be seen on television exploring sunken cities or looking for crashed aircraft.
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Luigi The PoopBot Wants To Know What You’re Ingesting
Over the last few years, scientists have turned to a new source to discover statistics about everything from diet to drug usage: your poop. Taking samples from sewers is a fantastic way to find out more about a population, bypassing the difficulty of getting people to answer surveys and peeling back the layers of stigma that prevents people from being honest about their habits.
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Did a Solar-Powered Autonomous Boat Just Cross the Pacific Ocean?
I struggle to descend the stairs leading to the sandy beach at Half Moon Bay, California, awkwardly hefting the 60-pound solar-powered boat SeaCharger atop my shoulder. Amid the numerous “what-the-heck-is-that?!” stares of the beachgoers, I perform some last-minute checks of the boat’s propeller and rudder and then wade out into the knee-high surf and push SeaCharger as hard as I can towards the oncoming waves.
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