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No Sailors Needed: Robot Sailboats Scour the Oceans for Data
- nxzero 10y agoGiven how much these likely cost to make and that they're unmanned, makes me wonder how they plan to keep drone jackers from capturing them for ransom; especially given the NYT supplied that the hangar is in Alameda, Calif.
- ddeck 10y agoI wonder the same thing about autonomous trucks. There's likely to be a significant period between the first driver-less trucks transporting goods across unpopulated areas and the vehicles being competent enough to detect the fact that someone is unloading the vehicle and that that car sitting in front of you is not traffic, but is just there to make you stop while you are pilfered. The move from a crime involving people to one only involving property may well lower the bar to would be criminals.
- pjc50 10y agoI'd expect them to have a lot of surveillance cameras on for this reason. Also as dashcams for collision liability, especially for the first truck vs. cyclist death incident.
- anotheryou 10y agoRight. I guess a lonely truck driver can not do much more than call the cops, a good alarm system might be sufficient.
- artmageddon 10y agoSurely, of all the truck drivers in the nation, a small subset of them would be armed?
- anotheryou 10y agoI'm in europe, few guns around here. Still I'd rather run/comply/hide than risk my life for 20t potatoes. To figure out which truck has the iPads and get away with them you'd need: - an insider to know the time and content of the truck - stop the truck - unload the truck at the spot (it will refuse to move your way) - deal with an alarm system (maybe lights and sirens) - get away and sell all the high value goods despite their serial numbers Should it become a problem we'll just ship all the boring stuff autonomously and the rest with a guard that needs no extra breaks and can sleep on the road.
- cstejerean 10y agoUnlikely. At least not with a firearm. Carrying weapons across state lines is a legal nightmare due to the inconsistent state laws. Truck drivers also get stopped by the cops more often than your average driver so I can't imagine many would risk it.
- _up 10y agoI wonder how much Trucks will be needed in the future. We will probably also have self driving Palettes and Packages. Which will be routed directly from the producer to the consumer.
- amenod 10y agoSure, let's suppose that happens. Then as next optimization you will have detachable wheels and engine, because that way you can use them better. And because some Palettes and Packages go the same way, you might want to carry them on the same set of wheels and engine. See where I am going with this? ;)
- _up 10y agoAren't heavy trucks considered overpropotional bad for the Roads and would use more Tires (respirable dust) and produce more noise. I don't think there is that much inscentiv if you can't cut down on expensive drivers or tech. And the tech will get very cheap some day.
- marcosdumay 10y agoAbout the trucks, you file a police complaint, and the police goes after the thieves. They may decide to ignore your complaint if it is rare, but will almost certainly not ignore if it becomes common. Just like they do with armed truck robberies today.
- Zigurd 10y agoAs with most attacks, the human is the weak link. Self-driving trucks, and self-driving ships, will both reduce theft. You can't threaten and/or bribe the driver. No driver means no need for the driver to sleep or pee. There will be no limits on the driver's duty cycle, and hence less exposure hazards. No driver means no need to provide convenient controls for diversion.
- eksemplar 10y agoIt would be fairly simple to have an alarm go off on cargo breaches. The first autonomous trucks will be convoys following a truck with an actual driver though.
- belorn 10y agoI was thinking the same, but then I thought about how extremely huge the ocean is and how hard it would be to find such drone. They could also adapt counter measures like painting it darker and make a smaller frame.
- nxzero 10y agoWhich is why providing the hanger location seems dangerous to me; meaning why go to the trouble of snatching them anywhere in the world when you know their likely point of origin. Also, would not be suprised if the security on these are relaxed for bandwidth reasons, or if the command and control center might be easily compromised.
- anotheryou 10y agoIt's small, maybe the chance of anyone finding it in the ocean and him beeing a pirate that want's to deal with that GPS tracker on board are slim.
- DasIch 10y agoJacking drones for ransom from a company that works directly with the US government? That might work a few times but how long until the coast guard intervenes? Not to mention that you need a ship, probably multiple people and quite a bit of time to find such a drone, which I imagine you don't want to do too close to the coast. I doubt this can be done in an economical fashion especially considering opportunity costs. Anyone who's able to do this can probably get a more stable and higher income trafficking drugs.
- ceejayoz 10y agoDo something along the lines of what commerce raiders did in WWII - give every hundredth or so drone ship some concealed anti-ship missiles.
- david-given 10y agoActually, a more realistic problem is damage caused by running into the things. They're basically logs floating awash. The ones I've seen have a small mast with a flag on them, and you could certainly fit them with a radar reflector, but they're still really low in the water and very hard to see. And they're certainly not smart enough to spot an oncoming vessel and take evasive action. Run into one in a fibreglass yacht and you could be having a very bad day.
- notahacker 10y agoSimplest solution is not to pay the ransom, which is a lot easier when it's a drone than a ship with crew. That eliminates the possibility that actually hunting for them becomes a viable business model unless you've got a high-value black market for any of the on-board tech, and I doubt they'll send many near the coast of Somalia or Mindanao where there's a relatively high density of pirates that might steal them out of sheer opportunism.
- zappo2938 10y agoSoon we will start seeing cocaine smuggled around the world in one of these.
- nxzero 10y agoNarco-submarines already exist and the cost of a manned boat would likely be cheaper than an autonomous one. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine
- DasIch 10y agoYou need to control both harbors for that though. If you have a crew, they can make the transaction with another organisation and you don't need any local resources.
- reustle 10y agoYou're assuming they come into a harbor. There are plenty of places to get to land with nobody around.
- DasIch 10y agoEven if you don't use an actual harbor but just a "harbor", you need control of that area or someone you sell the drugs to needs to have that control. You also need people that put money on the drone. No point in shipping the drugs, if you don't have a way to transport the proceeds into the other direction.
- anotheryou 10y agoI really like these, using a different passive propulsion: https://youtu.be/Hx5sntHLpu4 https://youtu.be/Hx5sntHLpu4 Also much more low profile :)
- Carioca 10y agoIsn't that the company James Gosling went off to?
- blt 10y agoyes.
- Animats 10y agoThat's a new, fancier Wave Glider. They've been making those for about 10 years. I heard their designer speak at Stanford. On the original version, the only powered moving part was the rudder, and they only had one underwater "wing". The utter simplicity of the thing is impressive. They're surprisingly controllable; they can generally keep to within 100 meters of the desired course. They communicate over Iridium. In early tests, they first ran one around Hawaii, then went from Hawaii to Monterey Bay, then up to the coast of Alaska and back. The Coast Guard classifies them as "floating debris", so they don't have to show navigation lights or obey the Rules of the Road. Collision with a ship would cause no more damage to the ship than hitting a loose surfboard. Liquid Robotics' control center watches ship positions from AIS and maneuvers the little boards out of the way.
- benzofuran 10y agoThe wave gliders are some awesome technology - I've been keeping an eye on their development for a while. Unfortunately they've only been hiring out of a very small pool and it's about impossible to get your foot in the door.
- manquer 10y agounmanned == autonomous/self "driving" ?
- woliveirajr 10y agoConsidering that crew is, in general, afraid of rocket-propelled grenades, and not heavily armed, I think that pirates will have less one point of attack. The design can also be different, making it harder to gain access to some or almost all sensitive areas. Perhaps other active- protection measures can be used or developed.
- worldsayshi 10y agoPerhaps it could go under water until the pirate given up and moved on.
- cabalamat 10y agoOr let the pirates board and then go underwater.
- oh_sigh 10y agoWhat is tripulation?
- woliveirajr 10y agoEdited, meant "crew". Thanks
- tamana 10y agoIt's a Romance language word that means "crew of a ship" , but isn't much used in English.
- tbihl 10y agoUNCLOS says they're not armed at all.
- csours 10y agoI, Rowboat? http://www.flurb.net/1/doctorow.htm http://www.flurb.net/1/doctorow.htm
- specialist 10y agoLove that story. Who's making the RoboBaleenBarge? Autonomous barges that scoop plastic debris from the gyres. Discerning enough to filter out man made crap. From infinitesimal to big in size. Allows critters to escape. Something like Mr Trash Wheel robust enough for open ocean. http://baltimorewaterfront.com/healthy-harbor/water-wheel/ http://baltimorewaterfront.com/healthy-harbor/water-wheel/ Maybe powered by waves, like these wave gliders. Or solar. Or the material it gathers. The gathered bundles are in turned gathered by bigger barges. Or dropped into a trench. Or used to fab new barges. A design that is super simple and easy to replicate. PS- Yes, I know about theoceancleanup.com effort. I'm bearish on that design. Though I hope I'm proven wrong.
- zem 10y agohow have i never seen that before? excellent story! reminds me of aldiss's "who can replace a man" crossed with "accelerando"
- rokhayakebe 10y agoIf everyone is building Aquadrones, a big opportunity will be around aquadrones surveillance (for GOV) and security (for private drone companies).
- alphydan 10y agoThese guys also have a cool saling drone which can self-right if it tips over in a storm http://www.automarinesys.com http://www.automarinesys.com
- joncp 10y ago...cool boat. Poor website. Why, oh why, do designers insist on interfering with the simple act of scrolling through their website? Don't mess with my scroll speed. Ever.
- saif_2577 10y agohttp://instagram.com/saif_2577 http://instagram.com/saif_2577
- saif_2577 10y agohttp://instagram.com/saif_2577 http://instagram.com/saif_2577
- sandworm101 10y agoSo could this thing bring 200kg of "baking powder" from my friend in south America, preferably by a route far far out to see. And can the sail be made of something that is perhaps less reflective to radar?