Water drones: Industry, university researchers take up challenge of robotic subs

摘要

The announcement called for technology so new it might exist only in the minds of inventors. Prospective contractors and analysts routinely compare the endeavor to the search for the Holy Grail. In this case, the Grail is an unmanned submarine smart enough to sense and avoid obstructions, powerful enough to stay out on months-long missions without detection, and cool enough to keep computers from overheating. Those are among the challenges facing the companies and universities vying to provide ideas to the U.S. Navy about how to power and autonomously navigate a Large Displacement Unmanned Undersea Vehicle, or LDU-UV, a development project led by the U.S. Office of Naval Research.