Things Everyone Should Know About Unmanned Surface Vehicles

By Lisa Wallace


These things are also called USVs. They are a brand new type of technology that has made it so you do not even need a person operating the vehicle for it to navigate successfully over places like public waters. Since this can be a safety risk to all, unmanned surface vehicles are definitely something to be looked into.

Anyone who has ever served on a military water craft or anyone who has ever taken an extended boat trip will be able to tell you easily that boats are fun to be on but can be very confining quarters. Now that there is technology that allows us to remove the crews from these vehicles, it is a great thing. This opens up all kinds of new opportunities that just were not there before.

Oceanographers love this new technology because it allows them to conduct their research in ways that never would have been possible before without these new advancements. This means that we will be able to find out more things about our mysterious oceans than ever before. With these wonderful advancements, we might find out shocking truths about the waters that we would never have expected.

One of the big benefits of using something like this is the cost savings. It is not difficult to see where are the savings come from, as the main thing that is eliminated from the equation is the people. When you have to hire a crew, you not only have to pay them fairly but you also have to consider things like food and other management issues.

When you are doing something as serious and precise as scientific research, you need something that you can count on in order to get data that we can actually learn from and possibly convince even the densest of politicians that global warming is really a thing that exists in the real world. Oceanographers have made use of moored or drifting weather buoys, but these are not always the best. That is why so many of them have turned to this new technological advancement.

A wonderful USV is the wave glider, which has a name that stands for itself. It literally rides the waves of the ocean in order to move itself around to wherever it is programmed to go. By using the energy from the sun, it is also able to use a renewable energy source to power up its electrical equipment.

There are plenty of USVs which are powered, and those have their own special uses for researchers as well because depending on the type of research that is being conducted, the scientists may need a vehicle that has a little more power behind it. One of the branches of oceanography is known as a hydrographic survey. This is helped out a lot with the advancements made in powered USVs.

This type of technology can actually save peoples lives by means of prevention when you think about all the military operations it is now helping. The military is often tasked with the grave mission of seeking out an underwater mine. This can be deadly to anyone in the vehicle, so if there does not have to be anyone in there, deaths can be prevented.




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