Autonomous glider can fly like an albatross
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts: MIT engineers have designed a robotic glider that can skim along the water’s surface, riding the wind like an albatross while also surfing the waves like a sailboat.
In regions of high wind, the robot is designed to stay aloft, much like its avian counterpart. Where there are calmer winds, the robot can dip a keel into the water to ride like a highly efficient sailboat instead.
The robotic system, which borrows from both nautical and biological designs, can cover a given distance using one-third as much wind as an albatross and travelling 10 times faster than a typical sailboat. The glider is also relatively lightweight, weighing about six pounds (2.72 kg). The researchers hope that in the near future, such compact, speedy robotic water-skimmers may be deployed in teams to survey large swaths of the ocean. “The oceans remain vastly under-monitored,” says Gabriel Bousquet, a former postdoc in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, who led the design of the robot as part of his graduate thesis.
“In particular, it’s very important to understand the Southern Ocean and how it is interacting with climate change. But it’s very hard to get there. We can now use the energy from the environment in an efficient way to do this long-distance travel, with a system that remains small-scale.”
Bousquet will present details of the robotic system at IEEE’s International Conference on Robotics and Automation, in Brisbane, Australia.
His collaborators on the project are Jean-Jacques Slotine, professor of mechanical engineering and information sciences and of brain sciences; and Michael Triantafyllou, the Henry L. and Grace Doherty Professor in Ocean Science and Engineering.