>
"I Hope They See This Segment" - Elon Musk Reveals He and Team Trump Have Identified...
BREAKING: Several Counties in Wisconsin Run Out of Ballots During Hotly Contested Supreme Court Race
Large Overnight Israeli Airstrike On Beirut Kills Hezbollah Official & Bystanders
"There Will Be No Negotiating": Tesla Firebombing Suspect Hit With Federal Charges,...
Watch the Jetson Personal Air Vehicle take flight, then order your own
Microneedles extract harmful cells, deliver drugs into chronic wounds
SpaceX Gigabay Will Help Increase Starship Production to Goal of 365 Ships Per Year
Nearly 100% of bacterial infections can now be identified in under 3 hours
World's first long-life sodium-ion power bank launched
3D-Printed Gun Components - Part 1, by M.B.
2 MW Nuclear Fusion Propulsion in Orbit Demo of Components in 2027
FCC Allows SpaceX Starlink Direct to Cellphone Power for 4G/5G Speeds
The two contractors chosen, Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation and Martin Defense Group, will each now build and present a full-size demonstration drone.
The mission profile here presents an impressive challenge; these machines need to be incredibly self-sufficient in a difficult environment. They'll need to be able to stop and charge up their own batteries, presumably harvesting energy from sub-sea currents. They'll need to be able to sense, label and avoid all manner of obstacles to avoid getting snagged in seaweed, scratched up by rocks and coral or stuck in crevasses.
They'll need to be highly corrosion-resistant to deal with the salt sea's ability to eat metal away, and capable of dealing with the broad range of micro- and macro-organisms that'll try to take up residence on the drone's surfaces.
And while doing all that, they'll need to be able to self-navigate, communicate with the surface, and carry meaningful mission payloads for potentially months on end, presumably while being very difficult to detect.
DARPA has produced a short video, which we feature below. It is not a very good video, but then, hey, it's DARPA. These guys don't need you, me or anyone else to think it looks cool.