Aquatic robots have been spotted in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands this summer. Two ocean-going drones were seen sailing toward the busy fishing port of Dutch Harbor with no one on board. Just what were these orange robots doing out there--and is there cause for alarm?
These robots are 18 feet tall. Each one has a bright orange wing of carbon fiber sticking up from a floating platform. At sea, they look like oversized windsurfers.
Using the wind for propulsion, and solar panels for their electronics, they’ve been traveling thousands of miles in the Bering Sea all by themselves.
It’s almost like they have minds of their own.
But these robots are working for good, not evil--we think.
Richard Jenkins is their creator. He’s the CEO of Saildrone, Inc.
Jenkins: “They’re autonomous. You send them waypoints and a corridor, and they won’t venture out of the corridor regardless of wind or tides. They’re kind of self-controlling. You just need a human to tell them roughly where to go.”
Hmm. Self-controlling. Not sure I like the sound of that.
Jenkins came up to Unalaska to take his robots out of the water and send them home after a three-month science mission.
Jenkins: “On the mast there, that little square thing pointing down? That is a laser, so it is an infrared camera, you could say. What it does, it tells you the sea surface temperature at the very top micron of the water.”
Great. Robots with lasers. What could possibly go wrong?
If these self-controlling machines haven’t gone rogue, they’ve been using their instruments to measure temperature, oxygen levels and 20 other conditions in the rapidly changing Bering Sea.
For now, the drones are obeying the orders of scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the University of Alaska-Fairbanks and the University of Washington.
The scientists say each drone can carry more than 200 pounds of scientific instruments. They can cruise the open ocean at up to 14 knots. They can boldly go where it would cost a lot more to send a ship full of human beings.
At a commercial fishing dock on Unalaska’s Captain’s Bay, Jenkins says he launched the two sail drones from the very same dock in April.
Jenkins: “We sent them out of here into 45-knot headwinds. From here, they went to St. Paul, then up through the Bering Sea up to Nome, then over to Norton Sound. We mapped the Yukon delta. Then they sailed back to Dutch Harbor. So 4,500 miles on each drone.”
Scientists hope data from the drones can further human understanding of threats to Bering Sea fisheries. Threats like climate change, Threats that humans, not robots, have caused.
Ryan: “Who’s more intelligent, your drones or you?”
“[Laughs] Drones, for sure. No, drones aren’t intelligent. Drones are robots that follow simple rules. They’re not able to make decisions for themselves. That’s all done back at base. You don’t want to have a whole heap of computing power on the drones because it’s a low power device. You only get so much energy from the sun, and computing power equals power consumption. This is just a pretty simple brain that actually just gets you from A to B and takes measurements.”
I guess that’s reassuring.
NOAA scientists say the drones’ biggest challenge isn’t subjugating the human race to their will, but dealing with cold water, limited sunlight and jellyfish.
Large numbers of jellyfish can clog the drones’ water intakes. Ah, so they’re not invincible.
Jenkins says his creations handled the jellyfish and algae and storms of the Bering Sea beautifully.
Jenkins: “If these vehicles can survive the Bering Sea, they can survive any place on Earth.”
Great. So if the drones do rise up against their masters, there’s no place to hide.
Next year, scientists hope to send the drones beyond the Bering Strait and into the Arctic Ocean. Here’s Dr. Strangedrone, I mean, Richard Jenkins again.
Jenkins: “The Arctic is one of the cutting edges of climate change right now. So getting to the Arctic to measure how fast the ice is melting and what happens to the ocean when it does melt is huge. Normally, that would be very, very expensive. You would need a big icebreaker. It’s a long way to go and very remote, whereas we can send these at very low risk and very low cost into some of harshest parts of planet.”
But what it the drones get sick of being sent to the harshest parts of the planet?
2001 movie clip: “Open the pod bay doors, Hal.”
“I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
Of course, that’s just science fiction.
2001 movie clip: “I know that you and Frank were going to disconnect me, and I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.”
In science non-fiction, Jenkins disassembles his sail drones on the fishing dock. He straps them down into their shipping crates on a busy dock. They don’t seem to put up any resistance. Maybe they are just useful tools for gathering important data about our rapidly changing oceans.
Maybe.
Copyright 2015 KUCB