ralph.ewig

Robotic Ocean Explorer - The first autonomous ocean exploration robot has completed its journey from San Francisco to Australia. Traveling over 9000 nautical miles in just over a year, the solar powered wave-gliding robot braved sharks, survived storms, and navigated around treacherous coastal regions. 

“During Papa Mau’s journey, [it] weathered gale-force storms, fended off sharks, spent more than 365 days at sea, skirted around the Great Barrier Reef, and finally battled and surfed the east Australian current to reach his final destination in Hervey Bay, near Bundaberg, Queensland.” […] “We are reaching a tipping point in that the technology is becoming so cheap that it’s now a much cheaper to use a robot to gather data than to pay for a manned ship to be at sea for months at a time.”