NASA, the U.S. Navy and university researchers have successfully demonstrated the first robotic underwater vehicle powered entirely by natural, renewable, ocean thermal energy, NASA announced Tuesday.
The Sounding Oceanographic Lagrangrian Observer Thermal RECharging autonomous vehicle uses a thermal recharging engine powered by the natural temperature differences at different ocean depths. The technology allows "virtually indefinite ocean monitoring for climate and marine animal studies, exploration and surveillance" and is scalable for use on most robotic oceanographic vehicles, NASA said.
"Most of Earth is covered by ocean, yet we know less about the ocean than we do about the surface of some planets," Yi Chao, a principal scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and SOLO-TREC co-principal investigator, said in a news release. "This technology to harvest energy from the ocean will have huge implications for how we can measure and monitor the ocean and its influence on climate."
Researchers JPL and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, at the University of California, San Diego, completed the first three months of an ocean endurance test of the prototype vehicle off the coast of Hawaii in March. SOLO-TREC has completed more than 300 dives as deep as 1,640 feet and is now in an extended mission, NASA said.
The vehicle uses waxy substances known as phase-change materials in 10 external tubes. The material melts and expands in warmer water and solidifies and contracts in colder water. The expansion pressurizes oil that periodically drives a hydraulic motor that generates electricity and recharges the vehicle's batteries.
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