Researchers Develop Robot Boat Powered by Wind and Solar Energy That Could Travel Without Crew

Written by Valdemar Medeiros

Published on 13/09/2020 at 09:49

Barco movido a energia eólica – mayflower

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The Uncrewed Wind and Solar Powered Boat Ready to Sail: The New Mayflower Sets Off for Its Transatlantic Crossing

A robot boat powered by wind and solar energy will make it possible to eliminate the crew. The real research mission will start in spring 2021.

The Modern Wind and Solar Powered Boat

The epic of American colonization is filled with legendary episodes. But the most famous is undoubtedly the journey of the Mayflower, the sailing ship that left Plymouth on the Thames to bring 102 Pilgrim Fathers to the shores of Massachusetts.

Four hundred years later, on September 16, another Mayflower is set to raise anchor from the British port of Plymouth, but this time it will not be a sailing ship. Instead, it is an uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) 15 meters long with a tonnage of 5 tons, powered by a combination of wind and solar energy, with a diesel engine on board only for backup purposes.

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Harnessing the Power of Technology to Combine Good Old Wind Energy with Solar Energy

The new Mayflower is the result of a project by Promare, a British oceanographic research NGO, and was built thanks to a consortium of international partners, including IBM, which developed the necessary artificial intelligence, cloud, and edge computing components for the navigation system.

Next week, there will just be a demonstration exhibition, awaiting the first actual cruise of the new Mayflower, scheduled for spring 2021 and lasting six weeks, aiming to conduct a series of sampling and scientific quality testing of marine waters.

Managing an oceanographic research campaign, the project creators note, costs a fortune, both in terms of personnel used and fuel. On the other hand, the autonomous vessel can concentrate in just 15 meters the equipment that could be carried by a 60-meter crewed ship, with 100 times less consumption and no environmental impact, as it will use a combination of wind and solar energy.

Researchers Develop Robot Boat Powered by Wind and Solar Energy That Could Travel Without Crew

The Uncrewed Wind and Solar Powered Boat Ready to Sail: The New Mayflower Sets Off for Its Transatlantic Crossing

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An astronaut spent 340 days in space while his twin brother stayed on Earth, and NASA found a “rejuvenating” effect, genes, microbiome, cognition, and immune system that revealed the biological cost of living outside the planet.

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