‘A SHARK Attacked My ROBOT’, Gasps Ex-Sun Exec

Home > News & Articles > ‘A SHARK Attacked My ROBOT’, Gasps Ex-Sun Exec

‘A SHARK Attacked My ROBOT’, Gasps Ex-Sun Exec

June 15th, 2011 ipadoholic Leave a comment Go to comments

A drudge from a startup firm helmed by a one-time Sun Microsystems senior manager was pounded by a shark in the Gulf of Mexico recently, according to reports.

The Wall Street Journal has the story, recounting the story of appurtenance contra elasmobranch as told to it by Bill Vass, late of Sun. Vass is today CEO of Liquid Robotics, a firm gift the services of its ocean-prowling “Wave Glider” consult robots.

At smallest once in his case, is the answer. Vass tells the WSJ that a of its Wave Gliders, cruising a hundred miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico on interest of BP this spring, unexpectedly reported that all was not well. Summoned back the base, the shop-worn drudge was found to have punch outlines in it.

“It was pounded by a shark with about a 12 to 14-inch size punch from the figure of the tooth outlines on the gliders fins,” says Vass.

The Wave Gliders underline a small-table-sized aspect float trustworthy to a grid of vanes next the surface, not unlike in pattern to the assemblies used to expansion fishing nets or minesweeping rigging – but written with articulated vanes so as to deed in the same citation when pulled up and down by the water.

As waves lift and tumble the float, the vanes are forced up and down, generating deliver bearing that propels the drudge along without the need for any other power source. Electricity generated by solar panels on the float is used for communications, cargo and superintendence by heavenly body navigation.

A Wave Glider, similar to established other variety of unmanned watercraft, can casing extensive distances at sea effectively unsupervised and at low cost compared to normal mobile seagoing platforms, transmitting information back to bottom all the while. In tests, the wily robots have journeyed from Hawaii to San Diego.

Admittedly it right away turns out that they may be taken off charge by shark attacks – the glider’s sensor cargo was assumingly knocked out of strike by the inspired shark progressing this year, as a result the need for a lapse to bottom – but Vass says this is rare. Liquid Robotics has suffered usually the a nip situation so far, he says, in 150,000 miles of glider operations.