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I'd love to read more of people using underwater drones. Smaller-than-a-football kind of drones. To boldly go where no modern human has fit before. I imagine b

I'd love to read more of people using underwater drones. Smaller-than-a-football kind of drones. To boldly go where no modern human has fit before. I imagine building out supply lines for refueling, developing sophisticated position tracking methodologies, and lots of other neat problem solving with no risk to human life.

travisjungroth 6y ago
I thought about this a lot while cavern diving in Mexico. It would likely need to be fully autonomous. Radio penetration is just about nothing in caves and lines get tangled. There are also dry sections in some caves, so you'll need a robot that can climb or fly. Super interesting challenges. I'll take a wild stab that human exploration of underwater caves will be over in 20 years.
- FlyMoreRockets 6y ago
  > It would likely need to be fully autonomous. It seems a lot could be accomplished with a tethered probe. A tether solves a couple of problems, namely power and data retrival. Granted, a tethered probe is unlikely to climb or fly.
  - nradov 6y ago
    Tethered probes aren't viable for cave exploration. The tether would get blown around by the water and snag on everything. Human cave divers have to keep their guidelines taut and tie them off periodically to rocks. Probes don't have enough manipulator dexterity to do that in a cave environment.
  - novok 6y ago
    Tethers also get tangled and will probably hit a bunch of crap you don't want to be hitting.
qchris 6y ago
I actually work with underwater ROVs, and in general, I think that this sort of a thing is a long way away. For one, most vehicles that small use an onboard battery, and it is really easy to burn that capacity if there's even a slight current. Plus, cables themselves have a large amount of drag, which means that for any distance, the thrusters that can move an ROV under short-distance conditions quickly become under-powered as any flow takes that cable. Even if they could be fully autonomous, there's still a bunch of issues, since caves in general and submerged ones in particular are GPS-denied environments. Acoustics like USBL equipment probably wouldn't work in a cave, instances of underwater VSLAM are still pretty nascent, and inertial navigation system with a low-enough error accumulation rate are almost universally export-controlled by their respective countries. It's definitely an interesting problem, though, and I honestly think that progress in the area is going to be made because folks that aren't experts in caving end up getting interested in it. For example, I'd imagine this kind of a problem is something that space agencies are also really interested in, since there's a lot room in the middle of their respective Venn diagrams.
gibolt 6y ago
Could be done with a snaking wire/tube. Battery could be housed at the source. Would need ability to make it through dry parts and go in reverse, but should be physically feasible. Financially is another story
- Leherenn 6y ago
  Couldn't you just pull it back to go in reverse?
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    Every try pulling on a garden hose that's stuck on a table leg, stump, or something else along those lines?
pdoege 6y ago
One such drone is the Sunfish https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/this-ai-guided-drone-has-mapped-one-of-earths-deepest-subterranean-lakes https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/this-ai-guided-d... Stone's DepthX AUV is a fully autonomous unit that was intended as a proof of concept for mapping Jupiter's moon Europa. https://stoneaerospace.com/depthx/ https://stoneaerospace.com/depthx/

travisjungroth 6y ago

I thought about this a lot while cavern diving in Mexico. It would likely need to be fully autonomous. Radio penetration is just about nothing in caves and lines get tangled. There are also dry sections in some caves, so you'll need a robot that can climb or fly. Super interesting challenges. I'll take a wild stab that human exploration of underwater caves will be over in 20 years.

FlyMoreRockets 6y ago
> It would likely need to be fully autonomous. It seems a lot could be accomplished with a tethered probe. A tether solves a couple of problems, namely power and data retrival. Granted, a tethered probe is unlikely to climb or fly.
- nradov 6y ago
  Tethered probes aren't viable for cave exploration. The tether would get blown around by the water and snag on everything. Human cave divers have to keep their guidelines taut and tie them off periodically to rocks. Probes don't have enough manipulator dexterity to do that in a cave environment.
- novok 6y ago
  Tethers also get tangled and will probably hit a bunch of crap you don't want to be hitting.

qchris 6y ago

I actually work with underwater ROVs, and in general, I think that this sort of a thing is a long way away. For one, most vehicles that small use an onboard battery, and it is really easy to burn that capacity if there's even a slight current. Plus, cables themselves have a large amount of drag, which means that for any distance, the thrusters that can move an ROV under short-distance conditions quickly become under-powered as any flow takes that cable. Even if they could be fully autonomous, there's still a bunch of issues, since caves in general and submerged ones in particular are GPS-denied environments. Acoustics like USBL equipment probably wouldn't work in a cave, instances of underwater VSLAM are still pretty nascent, and inertial navigation system with a low-enough error accumulation rate are almost universally export-controlled by their respective countries. It's definitely an interesting problem, though, and I honestly think that progress in the area is going to be made because folks that aren't experts in caving end up getting interested in it. For example, I'd imagine this kind of a problem is something that space agencies are also really interested in, since there's a lot room in the middle of their respective Venn diagrams.

gibolt 6y ago

Could be done with a snaking wire/tube. Battery could be housed at the source. Would need ability to make it through dry parts and go in reverse, but should be physically feasible. Financially is another story

Leherenn 6y ago
Couldn't you just pull it back to go in reverse?
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  Every try pulling on a garden hose that's stuck on a table leg, stump, or something else along those lines?

pdoege 6y ago

One such drone is the Sunfish https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/this-ai-guided-drone-has-mapped-one-of-earths-deepest-subterranean-lakes https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/this-ai-guided-d... Stone's DepthX AUV is a fully autonomous unit that was intended as a proof of concept for mapping Jupiter's moon Europa. https://stoneaerospace.com/depthx/ https://stoneaerospace.com/depthx/