WASHINGTON — The ocean is starting to fill up with robotic sailboats that have stiff wings for sails, allowing them to sail into the eyes of hurricanes and send back live video while they’re at it. Here are the details:
The Guardian reports that a clever new type of robotic craft called a sail drone has been making waves recently.
This comes just days after Defense News revealed on December 12 that the U.S. Navy has started testing sail drones as part of its plan to integrate new unmanned systems and artificial intelligence into its fleet operations.
The typical sail drone is a seven-meter long sail boat with a robot brain that can stay at sea indefinitely thanks to electrical power provided by a combination of wind and solar power.
Sail drone hulls are usually very low and narrow, and they use stiff wings as sails.
A similar robotic sail drone was programmed to sail into the eye of hurricane Sam in October.
This almost suicidal task was completed by a slightly adapted saildrone called Saildrone Explorer SD 1045, which have been modified to handle winds of 140 miles — or 225 kilometers — per hour.
SD 1045’s smaller wing helped it to survive the brutal weather while it sent live video and other data to its controllers.
An earlier version of the sail drone was tested in the Antarctic in 2019, but that one could only sail downwind.
The new wing on the new generation allows the drone to “run” and sail upwind, like a traditional yacht.
