A robot collecting oceanographic data in the Gulf of Mexico got a close-up look at Hurricane Isaac last week as the eye passed 60 miles east of where the robot was cruising.
A Wave Glider developed by Liquid Robotics and launched by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was minding its own business collecting ocean chemistry and other data when the storm changed direction and passed over the robot, dubbed G2, according to a Liquid Robotics press release.
The seven-foot Wave Glider is a solar-powered surfboard with a propulsion system and sensors to measure water temperature, wind speeds, barometric pressure, and air temperature. Scientists are starting to use these robots in their exploration of the oceans.
A graphic shows wind speed data from Hurricane Isaac recorded by a Wave Glider robot in the Gulf of Mexico during the storm. The Wave Glider, developed by Liquid Robotics and launched by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is a seven-foot-long surfboard with a solar-powered boat propulsion system and sensors to collect oceanographic and weather data. (Source: Liquid Robotics)
The Wave Glider provided data about what it was like in the Gulf during the storm, which featured sustained wind gusts of up to 74 knots and barometric pressure that fell to 988.3mbar, according to Liquid Robotics. Isaac battered Louisiana and Alabama last week, leaving floods and other damage in its wake.
Bill Vass, the company's CEO, said in the press release that the survival of the robot and its ability to transmit data in the face of severe winds and ocean waves was a testament to its sturdy design and bodes well for the future use of the gliders in hurricane research and prediction. "Hopefully, autonomous platforms like the Wave Glider will make it possible to better predict the severity and risk to everyone in the Gulf Coast area in the future."
As the G2 Wave Glider braved Hurricane Isaac, another Wave Glider, dubbed Alex, was on the other side of the Gulf near Puerto Rico as part of a joint project by the NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meterological Laboratory (AOML) and Liquid Robotics to study hurricane activity in the region. Alex is using its sensors to measure ocean and air conditions both above and below the surface of the water to help predict when the next hurricane will occur and also when it might increase in intensity, according to Liquid Robotics.
Tracking hurricanes isn't the only use scientists are finding for the Wave Gliders. As we reported last week, they are also exploring the Pacific Ocean near San Francisco as part of a wireless network of sensors and buoys that Stanford University researchers are using to track sharks.
The NOAA says it also has deployed Wave Gliders as part of a network of buoys in the Gulf of Mexico to measure the potential for tsunamis after earthquakes.
Design Engineer - While I am generally the first guy want to keep the government out, I wonder if this is one of the few instances where goverment involvement is a good thing. The primary goal of this is security (from the weather in this case), which is one of the functions of government.
You are correct, this probably would fall into a catagory of projects in which the government ought to be involved. The question in my mind is "Can a body that changes composition every two years keep the continuity required for a project that might go on for twenty years?". The record to date is not encouraging without an outside "special interest" group to keep them on point.
TJ, the term "robot" doesn't necessarily imply that it looks like a human, although early robots did. DN did a survey on this subject, asking our Systems & Product Design Engineering and Automation & Control Engineering groups on LinkedIn "Should Robots Look Like People or Machines?" Here are the results: http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1381&doc_id=237885
Design engineer, I am puzzled by your comment that the government is less capable of maintaining a long-term program than private enterprise. NASA has maintained the Voyager program since 1977!
General dictionaries are good for defining broad, commonly used vocabulary terms, but not at all useful for fast-moving, highly specialized fields like science and technology. Wikipedia is usually a lot more reliable. Here's what it says: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot
Ann is certainly correct. Industrial robots don't look at all human, at least most of them don't. With robotics, the name follows the functionality rather than the appearance. An automaton might be a better term for something designed to have somewhat of a human appearance, actualy, and that is closer to the roots of the word.
Thanks, William, for the industrial robot example. I didn't think of them in terms of appearance. One of the most interesting things to me about the definition cited in Wikipedia--as well as the definitions of robotics engineers--isn't what a robot looks like, but the fact that it doesn't have to be autonomous. Yet because of growing up with science fiction, I guess, many of us tend to assume that autonomy is part of the definition. A robot does have to perform tasks automatically, but that can be as part of a larger control system, such as found in industrial contexts, where controls are external to the robot. Most of the robots I write about are either remote-controlled (RC) or autonomous, and some can operate in both modes.
Almost all of the robots that I have worked with have been industrial robots, the closest times that they get to being autonomous are when they decide how to slow down for a direction change, and, for a select few, when they get to push untilo a specified force level is obtained. A fully autonomous industrial robot would be both scary and dangerous, since they are not very much aware of their surroundings.
And I thought that the word "robot" came from Remote Operation By OThers. Not sure where I read that, or if the source was reliable.
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