Rise of the Machines: Sharkbot

[Tuckerfan]

They’re not calling it that, but come on, we know that’s what they’re working on.

A small autonomous underwater vehicle, or AUV, named Spray was launched recently about 12 miles southeast of Bermuda. The two-meter-(6-foot)-long orange glider with a four-foot wingspan will slowly make its way northwest, crossing the Gulf Stream and reaching the continental shelf on the other side before turning around and heading back to Bermuda, where it will be recovered in July.

The voyage will be the vehicle’s second trip across the Gulf Stream.Spray made history last fall as the first AUV to cross the Gulf Stream, but this time it is making the trip from the other direction. The 112-pound vehicle was launched by researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution near a long-term research site known as Station S. Scientists Breck Owens from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Russ Davis and Jeff Sherman of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, will track its progress and are able to communicate with the vehicle via satellite during the mission to change course or alter the information it is collecting while at sea.

They should have named it “Bruce.”