Robotic Buoy to Monitor Maritime Pollution
An engineering professor, Mr. Kato, at Osaka University has developed a prototype of a robotic buoy at his lab, designed to facilitate the quick cleanup of heavy oil from the sea in the event of a maritime accident. Ultimately, the procedure is going to reduce damage to the environment.The lead researcher hopes to see the robot becomes commercially available in 2 to 3 years.
The ‘Katolab’ is conducting education and research on underwater robotics, biomechanics on aquatic animals and its application to engineering, computational hydrodynamics of viscous flow fields. The experimental cylindrical buoy measuring 2.7 meters in length and 27 centimeters in diameter will automatically track the spread of oil spill and send the information about them and their position by radio.
Once in the water, the robot, SOTAB 1 begins searching for oil by reducing its buoyancy and diving underwater, where it puts its imaging sensors back up at the surface. When the robot sees something that looks like oil, it further adjusts its buoyancy and floats back to the surface, using 4 fins to steer toward the oil slick. It then takes water samples and finds out how much oil is present. As SOTAB 1 follows the oil around, it sends back real-time data about its location and the surrounding meteorological and oceanographic conditions.
Kato is considering using solar batteries and tidal power generation because the prototype of the cell currently uses last only several hours, far from the goal of three weeks he is planning for.
Source: ZDnet
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