4 ms·

The article is a little thin on details. The big breakthrough seems to be mission duration - possibly months. With such a long duration, some other possibiliti

by jfoutz 11y ago

The article is a little thin on details. The big breakthrough seems to be mission duration - possibly months. With such a long duration, some other possibilities open up. Primarily, rather than launching from a ship close to the target, the sub can be launched from shore, navigate out to the target and then return. I wonder what the "hybrid rechargeable power system" is. Diesel with batteries? well understood and effective. It's gotta be something pretty energy dense to move around that mass and still have space for useful stuff.

smoyer 11y ago
James Gosling (the inventor of Java) has several videos on-line that describe the hardware and software used in his company's WaveGliders. While they're not submarines, they are autonomous and are powered by the waves they travel through. Solar cells provide power for instrumentation as well as navigation. I have no idea how you'd power such a vehicle as large as the Boeing system without either fossil fuel or a nuclear reactor but it would be interesting to compare the vehicle's missions.
- bpicolo 11y ago
  Solar doesn't work so well for submarines, granted. Light doesn't penetrate water nearly enough.
- unclebucknasty 11y ago
  >powered by the waves they travel through. How does this work? Wouldn't they expend more energy than they gain?
  - mac01021 11y ago
    The ocean waves move a float up and down at the surface. This pulls and pushes a set of fins-on-hinges below the surface to create forward motion. It's ingenious, and works because the waves don't push objects laterally, but are really just a vertical oscillation. The company that makes it is called Liquid Robotics, which should be enough to go on if you want to search for additional details.
    - unclebucknasty 11y ago
      Thanks for the background and the pointer. That is very interesting tech, and the key piece of exploiting the difference between wave motion at the surface vs at depth is ingenious.
  - nordsieck 11y ago
    Basically a wave glider is a surf board with a wing hanging below it. The wing can tip up or down 45 degrees, but no more. This means that any up or down movement on the part of the wave glider also gets converted into some forward movement.
  - nardi 11y ago
    That doesn't seem clear-cut to me. There's a lot of energy in waves that could be captured somehow. It's not like a perpetual motion machine.
    - unclebucknasty 11y ago
      The notion of capturing wave energy as the waves are being travelled through was what set off my skepticism. My thinking was that energy thus "captured" would entail resistance that opposes the work to move the craft, thereby offsetting any energy "gained".
      - nardi 11y ago
        > energy thus "captured" would entail resistance that opposes the work to move the craft Only if capturing motion that opposes the direction of movement.
  - todd8 11y ago
    I happened to remember reading about a wave powered design that propels a small model boat. I recall seeing it in an old Popular Mechanics and that the year was maybe 1948. I read it while in I was in 7th or 8th grade in a stack of my Uncle's old magazines stored in my Grandmother's basement over half a century ago! With the help of Google I found the article in less than a minute; I was off by a year: https://books.google.com/books?id=9NgDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA182&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=9NgDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA182&sour... . Take a look it explains how such a design works.
    - unclebucknasty 11y ago
      Interesting. Thanks for sharing. I can see some challenges with this, but the basic principle seems strikingly similar. Not sure what's more impressive: your memory or how easy it is to access relatively obscure information from well over a half-century ago.
- todd8 11y ago
  I had never heard of Gosling's Wave Glider, but I've commented below on how it probably works based on my memory of a 1949 Popular Mechanics article. I just realized that the PM article may invalidate some of Gosling's patents; IMNAL, but a cursory look at the first US one listed on the Wave Glider web site (US 7,371,136) looks like what is described in 1949. I didn't bother to look at the other 4 Wave Glider patents. I'm sure the Wave Glider works while I'm not sure the design described in the 1949 Popular Mechanics article is the same thing or would be practical at all.

by jfoutz 11y ago

smoyer 11y ago

James Gosling (the inventor of Java) has several videos on-line that describe the hardware and software used in his company's WaveGliders. While they're not submarines, they are autonomous and are powered by the waves they travel through. Solar cells provide power for instrumentation as well as navigation. I have no idea how you'd power such a vehicle as large as the Boeing system without either fossil fuel or a nuclear reactor but it would be interesting to compare the vehicle's missions.

bpicolo 11y ago
Solar doesn't work so well for submarines, granted. Light doesn't penetrate water nearly enough.
unclebucknasty 11y ago
>powered by the waves they travel through. How does this work? Wouldn't they expend more energy than they gain?
- mac01021 11y ago
  The ocean waves move a float up and down at the surface. This pulls and pushes a set of fins-on-hinges below the surface to create forward motion. It's ingenious, and works because the waves don't push objects laterally, but are really just a vertical oscillation. The company that makes it is called Liquid Robotics, which should be enough to go on if you want to search for additional details.
  - unclebucknasty 11y ago
    Thanks for the background and the pointer. That is very interesting tech, and the key piece of exploiting the difference between wave motion at the surface vs at depth is ingenious.
- nordsieck 11y ago
  Basically a wave glider is a surf board with a wing hanging below it. The wing can tip up or down 45 degrees, but no more. This means that any up or down movement on the part of the wave glider also gets converted into some forward movement.
- nardi 11y ago
  That doesn't seem clear-cut to me. There's a lot of energy in waves that could be captured somehow. It's not like a perpetual motion machine.
  - unclebucknasty 11y ago
    The notion of capturing wave energy as the waves are being travelled through was what set off my skepticism. My thinking was that energy thus "captured" would entail resistance that opposes the work to move the craft, thereby offsetting any energy "gained".
    - nardi 11y ago
      > energy thus "captured" would entail resistance that opposes the work to move the craft Only if capturing motion that opposes the direction of movement.
- todd8 11y ago
  I happened to remember reading about a wave powered design that propels a small model boat. I recall seeing it in an old Popular Mechanics and that the year was maybe 1948. I read it while in I was in 7th or 8th grade in a stack of my Uncle's old magazines stored in my Grandmother's basement over half a century ago! With the help of Google I found the article in less than a minute; I was off by a year: https://books.google.com/books?id=9NgDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA182&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=9NgDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA182&sour... . Take a look it explains how such a design works.
  - unclebucknasty 11y ago
    Interesting. Thanks for sharing. I can see some challenges with this, but the basic principle seems strikingly similar. Not sure what's more impressive: your memory or how easy it is to access relatively obscure information from well over a half-century ago.
todd8 11y ago
I had never heard of Gosling's Wave Glider, but I've commented below on how it probably works based on my memory of a 1949 Popular Mechanics article. I just realized that the PM article may invalidate some of Gosling's patents; IMNAL, but a cursory look at the first US one listed on the Wave Glider web site (US 7,371,136) looks like what is described in 1949. I didn't bother to look at the other 4 Wave Glider patents. I'm sure the Wave Glider works while I'm not sure the design described in the 1949 Popular Mechanics article is the same thing or would be practical at all.