A Fleet of Sailing Robots Sets Out To Quantify the Oceans (bloomberg.com) 76
pacopico writes: A start-up in California called Saildrone has built a fleet of robotic sailboats that are gathering tons of data about the oceans. The saildrones rely on a hard, carbon-fiber sail to catch wind, and solar panels to power all of their electronics and sensors. "Each drone carries at least $100,000 of electronics, batteries, and related gear," reports Businessweek. "Devices near the tip of the sail measure wind speed and direction, sunlight, air temperature and pressure, and humidity. Across the top of the drone's body, other electronics track wave height and period, carbon dioxide levels, and the strength of the Earth's magnetic field. Underwater, sensors monitor currents, dissolved oxygen levels, and water temperature, acidity, and salinity. Sonars and other acoustic instruments try to identify animal life." So far they've been used to find sharks, monitor fisheries, check on climate change and provide weather forecasts. Saildrone just raised $90 million to build a fleet of 1,000 drones, which it thinks will be enough to measure all of the world's oceans.
Alternate headline: (Score:4, Insightful)
"Hundred thousand dollar pieces of equipment are just floating around free!"
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"Yup $100K: They cost $80K in labor to build, carry $10K in sensors, and deploy with $10K worth of sharks with laserbeams and that audio weapon that makes you shit yourself. Foff, pirates."
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no
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The parts have to be manufactured somewhere.
Re:Alternate headline: (Score:4, Interesting)
More like 5k for each sensor. Check out Sea-Bird [seabird.com] - they make the gold standard for many types of oceanographic sensors. They are very expensive and very good.
With traditional oceanographic measurements, the most expensive part of acquiring data is physically going to the location from where you want to acquire the measurement. The cost of the sensors is nothing in comparison. As a result, you have expensive, high quality sensors being the norm. With these autonomous boats there might be a push to reduce sensor costs because the sensors will make up a greater percentage of the total cost. Time will tell...
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More like 5k for each sensor. Check out Sea-Bird [seabird.com] - they make the gold standard for many types of oceanographic sensors. They are very expensive and very good.
With traditional oceanographic measurements, the most expensive part of acquiring data is physically going to the location from where you want to acquire the measurement. The cost of the sensors is nothing in comparison. As a result, you have expensive, high quality sensors being the norm. With these autonomous boats there might be a push to reduce sensor costs because the sensors will make up a greater percentage of the total cost. Time will tell...
So, it would be worthwhile me developing a fleet of pirate robots to plunder that booty.
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More like 5k for each sensor. Check out Sea-Bird [seabird.com] - they make the gold standard for many types of oceanographic sensors. They are very expensive and very good.
With traditional oceanographic measurements, the most expensive part of acquiring data is physically going to the location from where you want to acquire the measurement. The cost of the sensors is nothing in comparison. As a result, you have expensive, high quality sensors being the norm. With these autonomous boats there might be a push to reduce sensor costs because the sensors will make up a greater percentage of the total cost. Time will tell...
So, it would be worthwhile me developing a fleet of pirate robots to plunder that booty.
I SO want to see that on youtube.
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So, without the electronics, they can build a sailboat for -$10K! Sell at a loss, and make it up in volume is finally true!
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1000 production units maybe 40k for the same electronics.
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There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY there are hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment on board.
Even if they bought everything retail down at the local shop, that would be simply ridiculous.
What they mean is 'we did a bit of hardware development, cut ourselves a MASSIVE overheads and development
markup, then we claim its worth this'
I can guarantee that any of 1000 small product development locations in China could build them for under $1000
in electronics. Easily. Without even trying.
One of the projects I h
show the BOM (Score:2)
you claim
"One of the projects I have right here has high resolution GPS and 6dof inertial, high resolution pressure, 100km capable radio,
32bit micro, batteries to store enough energy for 6 months operation (including the radio), flash storage in the GBytes, solar for recharge,
waterproof packaging, and the total cost is under $100usd..."
I'm all ears show me where I can purchase or at least a Bill Of Materials / Parts
interested
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Are you using all the sensors in the list?
"Each drone carries at least $100,000 of electronics, batteries, and related gear," reports Businessweek. "Devices near the tip of the sail measure wind speed and direction, sunlight, air temperature and pressure, and humidity. Across the top of the drone's body, other electronics track wave height and period, carbon dioxide levels, and the strength of the Earth's magnetic field. Underwater, sensors monitor currents, dissolved oxygen levels, and water temperature, a
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"Each drone carries at least $100,000 of electronics, batteries, and related gear"
What happens if the value of the gear goes down? Does it have to be loaded with more gear so it reaches the $100,000 point?
(No really though. Grammar is not something you can mess with. This isn't a game.)
Captcha: audited
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If these things have residual value at all, they will become “salvage”.
Really awesome... (Score:1)
This is exactly the kind of objective, horizon-advancing science that we need, in my mind to see further into some of our most pressing problems on the planet.
That said - we've got a planet full of folks who will almost undoubtedly dismiss anything that comes out of it, if the answers it finds can in any way be connected ideas that might challenge their fragile ideas of a planet that only serves their interests.
Any hint that significant extinction events, significant warming, or even just over-fishing are g
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Why should he when there's no way in hell that you ever would?
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research does not verify conclusions. If at the end you come to a different conclusion than what you though was going to happen, you win.
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No, being the LynnwoodDenier makes you ant-science. Picking and choosing what studies you believe based on your denial of global warming makes you anti-science. Linking to denialist sites already shown to massage the figures and pick and choose what years to use to get the results you want, makes you anti-science.
If you aren't the LynwoodDenier, then you are right, I don't know anything about your background. So why did you direct your comment to me?
Things like this [slashdot.org] show what non science 'thinking' goes
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Unless done for a classified or private sector project the researcher must publish it for verification. I've worked with raw voltage readings to check calibration and ensure the gear was working properly.
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The reason we do research, real research not the "I researched on Stacker Flow and copied some code", is that we do not know so we go and look.
If you you know how long it will take, how much it will cost, and what the results will be it isn't research.
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Before I make one comment plus or minus such a project which I'm very interested in. I want to know one simply thing. Will I get access to the original unadulterated data or this going to be another project where the PTB decide to modify the data and throw the real data out or simply deny me from getting access to it.
If I can't see the true original data than this project is meaningless to me and to many others.
Obviously not all deniers but some do question the analysis because they are denied access to the
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Unless done for a classier or private sector project the researcher must publish it for verification. I've worked with raw voltage readings to check calibration and ensure the gear was working properly.
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hoops respond to the wrong person. Sorry about any confusion.
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Ahh... the raw data, virginal and pure as the driven snow. Maybe your time would be better spent understanding why the modifications are made and the techniques used to do the modifications. Very little raw data comes without defects. Calibration issues, measurement bias and for large long term data sets changes in the methods used to collect the data as modern methods improve and other things all affect the quality of the data. These are things the scientists have to take into account when analyzing th
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You don't just go in and start changing data the way you want.
Which is why I said:
Maybe your time would be better spent understanding why the modifications are made and the techniques used to do the modifications.
Because scientists don't just adjust the data for arbitrary reasons. When adjustments are made they have to be defended before other scientists who will quickly call out any unjustified changes. If you think otherwise it's up to you to show in a scientific manner why the changes are unjustified. Just believing they are doesn't make it so.
When talking about long term obviously the further you go out into the future the less sure you are about what will happen. It's unknown what future
Re: Really awesome... (Score:1)
Just 10 years late: https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/cs/research/ir/robots/beagle-b/
the next news will be (Score:2)
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I doubt that. It's highly unlikely that they will be níggered. It's well-known that níggers don't like going in the water. These sailboats should be pretty safe.
What about all the modern day pirates?
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Pirates are found in waters all around the world [yachtingmonthly.com].
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There is a lot of blather and wild-ass-guessing in this forum today, I see. First of all, there is piracy in a fair number of spots in the world, but if you stay above 40 N and below 40 S, you aren't going to see any pirates. As well the UN suggests to sail at least 50 nautical miles off shore to prevent contact with maritime piracy. There are a few spots where that is not applicable, but they are in a minority: Offshore of Somalia, Malacca Straits, pretty well anywhere near Indonesia. Beyond 50 NM, the
Smugling opportinities? (Score:4, Interesting)
Catch a drone, load it up with contraband, release it, catch it at the destination, retrieve your stuff.
Or, just build ones that look just like them - coastguard will likely ignore them (no humans on board to even as to stop and board).
which it thinks will be enough to measure (Score:1)
Funny... (Score:3)
While you are out there... (Score:4, Insightful)
Pick up all the plastic trash....
Check for climate change???? (Score:1)
So far they've been used to [...] check on climate change
How exactly can *ANYONE* search for climate change? By definition this is a long-term process (as opposed to weather).
So the business plan for this startup is: (Score:2)
1. Raise VC money, build and test drones.
2. Gather data about the oceans
3. ???????
4. Profit
BTW, this isn't satire. From TFA:
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"Yeah, so we'll work out the business model later."
so like most Internet start-ups today!
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Wrong tool for the job (Score:1)
Their 'survey' is missing most of the ocean.
It's below the surface where an autonomous glider would be perfect.
Instead, they make both a tempting target and a nav hazard.
Hope the world survives all the do-gooders.
Doing the same as Argo, then (Score:2)
For the last 18 years, the Argo [wikipedia.org] oceanic system has been collecting huge amounts of data. I can't see what this project adds to that body of knowledge.
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Argo floats spend the vast majority of their time far under the surface of the ocean. They also passively float with the currents. The Saildrones monitor surface conditions of both the ocean and the atmosphere as well as use sonar to possibly monitor wildlife. The drones can be directed to sail to and monitor anywhere that is deep enough for them to not run aground.
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Be that as it may, it is still a huge amount of information that isn't currently being gathered. As the fine article also points out that is information that relates directly to weather. Having more information and of higher quality than is currently available would make for much better weather predicting capabilities. Better weather predictive abilities can translate directly into better and more timely responses to things like hurricanes.
Saying that Saildrone isn't worth pursuing is like saying that you s
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I'm sure you could mount a wire-walking CTD on one of these, it wouldn't be the full data set from an Argo, but still very useful.
Cue pirate memes... (Score:2)
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I am wondering how you are going to find a single 2 meter craft in the entire ocean. Trivially?
So say you do end up locating one, you then spend hundreds if not thousands on boat gas to get to it, then you have to disable it without triggering its possible security (that say sends a picture of the intruder right back to hq on the sat link).
Then you have the probe onboard your vessel. You have 80k worth of ocean
perfect purpose (Score:3, Interesting)
They have sonar? Set them loose to find MH370.....