[HN Gopher] Ocean drone captures video from inside a hurricane
___________________________________________________________________
Ocean drone captures video from inside a hurricane
Author : duck
Score : 566 points
Date : 2021-10-01 05:54 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.noaa.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.noaa.gov)
| alkonaut wrote:
| As impressive as navigating and sailing autonomously is, I'm most
| impressed by the construction of a camera where the lens isn't
| completely sprayed with water while in a storm.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I wonder if it's got a Clear View Screen [1] at an offset in
| front of it, the round window thing you see in ships. Basically
| a round pane that they spin really fast, throwing any water off
| right away.
|
| Shameless plug of a youtube channel I enjoy, here's a guy
| installing one of those in their CNC machine to make better
| footage [2].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_view_screen [2]
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYAnOheWHEA
| ajdegol wrote:
| It's not a shameless plug if it's not your own channel. :)
| jacquesm wrote:
| It doesn't look like it, there is some more footage online of
| that drone and you can clearly see the spray stick to the
| glass in front of the camera.
| conductr wrote:
| I was also wishing it had some form of gimbal/stabilization, I
| think it would help visually to put the wave sizes into
| perspective. Maybe not, I don't know much about video stuff
| kuu wrote:
| Probably it doesn't add any scientific value, but I was expecting
| sound with the video (even if it all is noise)
| comeonseriously wrote:
| It probably would sound like noise.
|
| Hurricanes are interesting to listen to, though. The banshee
| wails of the winds as another band comes through. The low
| growling/humming sound when it is otherwise quiet between
| bands. The wet, snapping of death coming to a tree.
| guenthert wrote:
| Yes, if they put a microphone on a Mars rover, why not on an
| ocean going drone? A microphone deep in the water might be nice
| too (and I would be _very_ surprised if they don 't have those
| for applications in marine biology and military).
| throwawaysea wrote:
| They footage is very cool, and also terrifying. Is the SailDrone
| designed in some special way to avoid capsizing in such extreme
| conditions? For that matter what do regular (amateur) boaters do
| if their sailboat or motorized boat get caught in a bad storm on
| the open ocean?
| [deleted]
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| From what I recall, it's designed with a "hurricane wing"[1].
|
| As for regular yachts - drop a drogue, run before the storm
| with a bare minimum of sails up to maintain steering ability,
| try to keep the waves on your stern.
|
| [1]: https://www.saildrone.com/news/tropical-atlantic-
| hurricane-m...
| unwind wrote:
| Their vechicle technology page [1] has some details about the
| design, with pictures of the underwater parts too. It seems to
| be a combination of the rigid sail, the crossing "spar", and
| some sub-surface features.
|
| Also surprised at the scale of the things, the smallest model
| is 7 m (23 ft) long, the largest is a whopping 22 m (72 feet).
|
| Pretty cool things!
|
| [1]: https://www.saildrone.com/technology/vehicles
| [deleted]
| danking00 wrote:
| The term to Google is "heavy weather sailing". There are a
| number of techniques that start with checking the weather well
| ahead of time.
|
| If you're stuck at sea with a hurricane barreling down you can
| try to sail around the equatorial edge of it (in the northern
| hemisphere you try to sail south of it). Hurricanes tend to
| veer away from the equator. Moreover the wind and waves will be
| behind you, so you're less likely to get knocked over by a gust
| or a wave. The boat is quite literally surfing.
|
| If things get really bad you might heave-to which is a way to
| work the wind against itself causing the boat to mostly stall.
| It's supposed to be very safe in heavy winds, but you would be
| pointing at the waves which is bound to be unpleasant.
|
| Finally, a sailboat's keel is very heavy. Check out the
| diagrams at [1]. The mast has to be well below water before the
| sailboat prefers turtling to upright.
|
| [1] http://troldand.dk/en/?The_Boat___Stability
| jacquesm wrote:
| In theory. In practice things will never ever go as planned
| and you're going to have to improvise. Stuff will break, wind
| will change direction rapidly, you may have to chop a sail,
| you may lose a mast.
|
| The very best way to deal with heavy weather is to be on the
| shore.
| sbacic wrote:
| > For that matter what do regular (amateur) boaters do if their
| sailboat or motorized boat get caught in a bad storm on the
| open ocean?
|
| I am far from an expert on this topic, but for sailboats; sea
| anchors and storm sails. The first is a parachute-like device
| that keeps the boat pointed in the right direction relative to
| the waves. The second is a small, tough sail used when any
| other sail, even while reefed, would be too big.
|
| If you can't make it to shelter in time, it's better to weather
| the storm in open water than near the shore - at least that
| way, you won't risk hitting something and sinking.
| occams_chainsaw wrote:
| For that matter what do regular (amateur) boaters do if their
| sailboat or motorized boat get caught in a bad storm on the
| open ocean?
|
| They footage IS very cool, for that matter what do EXPERIENCED
| boaters do if their sailboat or motorized boat get caught in a
| bad storm?
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| Pray
| enriquto wrote:
| > what do EXPERIENCED boaters do if their sailboat or
| motorized boat get caught in a bad storm?
|
| Nowadays I'd say experienced boaters never get to that point.
| There's reliable weather forecasting and near-instantaneous
| radar data. You can avoid the storms.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Exactly.
| OldHand2018 wrote:
| My understanding is that you can sail completely around
| the world in a small sailboat without ever being more
| than 2-3 weeks from a port of call. You check the weather
| forecast and leave for the next leg of your journey when
| you have a high confidence of a good weather window. And
| I've heard that pretty much no port will kick you out if
| you overstay your visa by waiting for safe weather
| (though you probably have to stay on the boat and not
| come ashore).
|
| Also, at least in the US, typical boat insurance is very
| expensive if you want to have your boat anywhere near
| hurricane "areas" during hurricane season. People up here
| in the northern US like to take their boats down to
| Florida or the Caribbean during winter, but generally
| their insurance policy is null and void if they get there
| before Dec 1.
| fullwaza wrote:
| Disappointing. No shark-nado or laser beams anywhere.
| m4tthumphrey wrote:
| I genuinely feel quite terrified just watching that first video.
| qwertyuiop_ wrote:
| I always wondered how the seas looked inside the hurricane.
| Thanks to technology someone accomplished this.
| nanna wrote:
| Not being funny but that's pretty much what it looks like on a
| typical winter's day wherabouts I live (England).
| arwineap wrote:
| Bullshit.
|
| Maybe force 6 is normal, but this is easily force 10+
|
| Even the fastnet race of 79 was LESS than what we are seeing in
| this video
|
| The pilot chart for north atlantic in december is showing 20%
| of days are at a gale in your latitudes, but that's again, a
| far stretch from the video:
| https://www.offshoreblue.com/nav/pilot-charts.php
|
| Here's the beaufort scale for reference:
| https://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/beaufort.html
| jve wrote:
| I actually had the expectation that Eye of the hurricane is
| pretty calm. Doesn't look like. And then I wonder what happens
| on the edge of the hurricane...
| hirsin wrote:
| The eye is very calm - and freakily bright. It glows from all
| directions as the light is reflected down into it, causing
| all the windows in the house to cast shadows onto the floor,
| which your brain can quickly realize is wrong! But I expect
| on the water it's a bit different - I experienced the eye of
| hurricane Charley when it made landfall in Florida in 2004.
| My uncle actually ran for his camera because he figured it'd
| be calm a while. Thankfully he was right
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| But this footage is not from within the eye.
| sergers wrote:
| is it not? i assumed it was the eye with the title "inside
| a huricane"
|
| other sites: "For first time ever, drone sent into eye of
| Cat. 4 hurricane"
|
| the article outlines footage from inside the hurricane.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| > the article outlines footage from inside the hurricane.
|
| Further the article has a video showing the location of
| the drone in the storm, pretty far from the eye.
| jameshart wrote:
| 'Inside a hurricane' could very well mean either 'inside
| the envelope around a hurricane where wind speeds exceed
| hurricane force', 'inside the eye wall of a hurricane',
| rather than 'inside the eye of a hurricane'.
|
| If someone tells you there's jam inside a donut do you
| complain that the hole through the middle appears to
| contain no jam?
| jacquesm wrote:
| It definitely seems like it is from within the eye, or at
| least extremely close to it based on the video imagery.
| ape4 wrote:
| Sci-fi: the hurricane takes it back in time to the 1400s. It
| sails over to Europe and videos Columbus leaving for the new
| world.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| Go deeper: The Vikings departing c. 1000
| joshuahughes wrote:
| Understandable but disappointing that there's no sound. I filled
| the silence with a 'hurricane wind' track from Spotify, because
| I'm sad like that...
| https://open.spotify.com/episode/1p7ZN5APoqPzF2YSkH9vqP
| scandox wrote:
| I don't know why but I find watching extreme weather very
| calming. I feel almost hypnotized watching that video.
|
| I notice that there are a lot of videos on Youtube of stormy
| weather which people use to help them sleep. So I guess this is
| part of that same phenomenon.
| sharmin123 wrote:
| The Best And Easiest Ways To Protect Yourself From Hackers:
| https://www.hackerslist.co/the-best-and-easiest-ways-to-prot...
| alistairSH wrote:
| Info from the manufacturer: https://www.saildrone.com
|
| If I'm reading correctly, NOAA is using the smallest of the three
| current models.
| guenthert wrote:
| The article states that they used five specially designed
| drones. I thought that means that those are different then
| three products listed on saildrones' website. The one in NOAA's
| article looks a bit more sturdy (more compact sail) than the
| small model.
| aleksandrh wrote:
| I really hope drones continue to be used for good, rather than
| blowing people up from the comfort of a gaming chair.
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| Sneaking in under cover of hurricane for a first strike.
| JoachimS wrote:
| I really didn't grasp the size of that drone. It is not a little
| model boat, it is a ship. This video shows it being launched, and
| includes images of what it looks like:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ-uYy9Ap8A
| ezzaf wrote:
| That's a larger model, this is the earlier Saildrone Explorer
| mentioned in that video. The vessel they are launching is 72
| feet long, this one is 23 feet. So not a model boat, but not
| large either.
| yosito wrote:
| The house I grew up in, in the US, was 23 feet wide. And
| globally speaking, that's a big house. So it ain't small,
| either.
| fho wrote:
| Could somebody please TL;DR the wing design (of the big boat)
| for me? The one with the additional extra wing?
| maxerickson wrote:
| The hurricane wing? It's smaller.
|
| https://www.saildrone.com/news/tropical-atlantic-
| hurricane-m...
| fho wrote:
| Ah ok ... no I was asking about the full size wing with
| that second wing attached to it.
| jcun4128 wrote:
| Think it's like an elevator on airplane controls the
| angle of the big one.
|
| Easier to rotate the wing than a motor at the root of the
| big wing.
| fho wrote:
| Ooooh ... smart! Now ... I wonder if I can do the same
| thing for my 3D printed (hobby-) VAWTs!
| jcun4128 wrote:
| I think those have some kind of centrifugal pitch control
| with a linkage (based on RPM), might have to look at
| existing designs.
|
| There are some helicopter blades that have this same
| idea, a little moving thing to control the pitch of the
| rotor over a swash plate
| rkagerer wrote:
| Controlling the pitch of the blades is how _most_
| helicopters work.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, but that's using an external actuator, rather than
| weights that pull the blades to their new angle.
| jcun4128 wrote:
| Probably wasn't clear above, I'm saying they weren't
| using a swashplate (most helicopters) they were using
| this little tiny tab attached to the rotor that could be
| controlled.
|
| This thing on kman kmax https://gallery.vtol.org/images/2
| 017/08/15/kmaxServoFlap.jpg
|
| info https://www.helis.com/howflies/servo.php
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's a safety feature as much as it is an efficiency
| feature, it allows you to safely furl the blades when you
| are overspeeding, you can't rely on anything that isn't
| directly connected to the rotor base because it might be
| jammed, damaged, out of power or missing entirely. The
| blades governing themselves is the ideal, the linkage is
| there for synchronization and balance purposes only.
| darksaints wrote:
| It's a self trimming wingsail. Its only purpose is to
| maintain the angle of attack of the main wing, much like
| how a horizontal stabilizer works on an airplane.
|
| Personally I think it is something that is brilliant, and
| it is actually the primary feature that enables autonomous
| operation as a drone. There are no halyards or sheets, no
| ropes anywhere. All you have to do is maintain an angle of
| attack relative to the wind, and you have propulsion.
|
| BTW, the founder holds the wind propulsion land speed
| record, and the wing design for this is an evolution of
| that design. When you're moving at 4 times the wind speed,
| no human can possibly keep up with the continuous trimming
| demands of a sail. This design does it perfectly, and at an
| overall _reduction_ in total complexity.
| gertrunde wrote:
| Nice, I had seen the Explorer models a while back and rather
| liked the work they were doing, it's great to see they are
| progressing and making larger ones.
| jonshariat wrote:
| Some smaller sizes ones shown here:
| https://youtu.be/ugDnC0iidL4?t=227
| comeonseriously wrote:
| I would love to see it annotated with numerical data that it is
| collecting, like how high the waves are, how fast the winds are,
| etc.
| krisoft wrote:
| The date of the video is the most impressive to me here. It says
| "Sept. 30, 2021" both as the date of the article and the date of
| the video. If this is not a mistake that means they managed to
| deliver the video from the hurricane to the internet in less than
| 24 hours.
|
| Why is this impressive? Either they beamed it out through
| satelites, which is notoriously hard from an unstable platform on
| big waves, or they recovered the saildrone and obtained the
| footage directly which is equally impressive in or around a
| hurricane.
|
| All around if the dating of the footage is correct it is very
| impressive to me.
| metaphor wrote:
| All that...by a US federal agency. Respect.
| krasin wrote:
| Saildrone is a startup; its primary customer is NOAA, the US
| Federal agency in the question.
|
| From my impressions, NOAA is a very useful agency that
| delivers on its mission pretty well. But I never interacted
| with them directly.
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| I've used NOAA data to investigate how weather effects
| production and energy consumption in manufacturing
| environments.
|
| I found the data to be of good quality, free, and a simple
| interface to interact with.
|
| One day I went to export data from their web portal and it
| never seemed to be ready. I shot an email off with no
| expectation of a response, but a little while later I got a
| nice response from their system administrator that they
| were doing an upgrade and some jobs got backed up in the
| queue. My limited experience with them has been all
| positive.
| nbardy wrote:
| NOAA is very hit or miss with their data. I spent a lot
| of time this summer with the NOAA buoy data. So much of
| it is available and well documented. The historical and
| live CSV's are useful, but there is also the stuff where
| a column name doesn't link up to any of the docs and you
| have to dig through papers and reverse engineer the
| correct equation.
|
| The biggest downside is the buoy's are rather old so you
| don't get a lot of data. Nowadays we could design a buoy
| that streamed back all of its raw data. But the buoys are
| designed with bandwidth constrained hardware so they do
| the analysis on the machine and return the summary
| results infrequently. It really limits what you're able
| to do with the data. Especially holding back from machine
| learning capability.
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| I was using very basic factors - temperature and humidity
| primarily. I never ran into that issue, but I could
| certainly see it being a challenge.
|
| Out of curiosity, what have you been using buoy data for?
| hyper_dynamics wrote:
| I do and it's true!
| hparadiz wrote:
| Their forecasts are used by basically all the news reports
| in the entire country. They might actually have the most
| direct effect on your life of any agency out there. When
| there is a warning or watch it's basically their call.
| metaphor wrote:
| Something about NOAA brushing shoulders with what could
| have been existential disaster[1] to the detriment of the
| public, only to resume their mission of diving head first
| into natural ones supported by the first-to-market ethos
| of a modern startup has poetic justice vibes to it. A win
| for both Saildrone and the general public at large.
|
| [1]
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-14/trump-
| s-p...
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| NOAA's most obvious citizen-facing product for me has been
| the National Hurricane Center.
|
| Right here is a link to the web site:
| https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
|
| Their forecasting graphics (probability distributions of
| tropical cyclone tracks, wind speeds, rainfall, et cetera,
| all overlaid on maps) are direct and easy-to-read, and do a
| good job of conveying the uncertainty of the behavior of
| these storms in a way that's legible to a lay person.
| maxerickson wrote:
| They run most of the weather radar in the US.
| pbourke wrote:
| When those tracks are thought to be inaccurate they can
| easily be edited with a sharpie.
| max-ibel wrote:
| NOAA has always had it together. I think working for them
| might be a lot of fun (unless you have to interface with
| politics, which I think only a few people there have to).
| CerealFounder wrote:
| Hijacking: Can someone ELI5 me why two pockets of differing air
| temperature create such violent weather patterns? It feels like
| dark magic.
| Jenk wrote:
| I was just thinking to myself that maybe it's my age or
| something but the fact that I am sat a thousand miles away
| watching a video, on my phone, from inside a hurricane that was
| recorded, edited, and published all in less than a day, is one
| of those "I'm living in the future, aren't I?" Moments.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Watching dashcam video footage of the Chelyabinsk meteorite a
| few hours after it had first been reported, on my smartphone,
| sitting in the garage after a grocery run, was it for me.
| pwg wrote:
| In my case, it was seeing the photos of Comet Shoemaker-
| Levy 9's [1] impact with Jupiter on the web very soon after
| the impact date (latency was but a few days if memory
| serves, date was July 1994).
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Shoemaker%E2%80%93L
| evy_9
| dredmorbius wrote:
| There were some earlier moments for me as well.
|
| Being impacted by the Morris Worm, and having a (text-
| based) copy of the Pons-Fleischman paper, both circa
| 1988, via the uni Unix server, was pretty cool.
|
| But Chelyabinsk was a massively-shared instance, where a
| random news event in a place that was absolutely _not_ a
| media centre, was still accessible in very short order
| with multiple coverages.
|
| Sci-Hub / LibGen give a similar feeling, though in a
| different sense. Wells's World Brain and Bush's Memex,
| delivered. Even if the Establishment is being dragged
| kicking and screaming.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Watching it live was more impressive than videos, and the
| BOOM was really shaking.
|
| (I actually live in Chelyabinsk)
| dredmorbius wrote:
| I prefer living in my future at a distance ;-)
|
| That must have been absolutely amazing.
|
| Did you see the initial airburst itself? What were your
| thoughts / how would you describe your reaction as the
| event unfolded?
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| I saw part of the burst and to me it was immediately
| clear what it was. Also, the timing of the boom arrival
| helped determine the distance with good precision.
|
| Thoughts, 'WOW', 'COOL', 'Did somebody film that??', and,
| of course, the rest of the workday was not very
| productive. It was nice to see that so much footage made.
|
| One thing footage doesn't show is, however, the heat: the
| radiation was intense and open parts of the skin did feel
| hot, like , REALLLY BURNING HOT. Had it lasted longer,
| there would be burns on everybody.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| I've seen estimates of the Chelyabinsk energy yield at
| about 500 kT TNT equivalent. How that was distributed as
| light, shock wave, and thermal energy (latter coupled
| with light) has been something I'd wondered at, and your
| comment on the heat is interesting.
|
| I'd think that a larger impactor or one that survived
| further into Earth's atmosphere (and closer to the
| surface) might have changed that experience markedly.
| You're informing my own advice-to-self as to how to
| respond should I see a very large airburst at some point.
| "Stay away from glass" was already part of that, as well
| as "expect the shockwave after about 90 seconds". I think
| I'll add "avoid direct thermal exposure if it looks to be
| large" to the list.
|
| If you've not already seen the Sandia Labs modelling
| based on the 1908 Tunguska event, the shockwave dynamics
| suggest to me why and how the multiple shockwave arrivals
| at a given point on the ground occur:
|
| https://newsreleases.sandia.gov/releases/2007/asteroid.ht
| ml
|
| Particularly this simulation:
| http://www.sandia.gov/videos2007/2007-6514Pfire.hv1.1.mpg
| HPsquared wrote:
| "Resist the urge to stare at it through the window"
| jacquesm wrote:
| The one reason Halifax has such a large amount of
| expertise on eye surgery was people not resisting that
| urge.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| From 1917?
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| That was 191x. And _still_ translates to experience
| /quality/clustering of eye surgery there?
|
| I'm unaware of something like that in locations which
| suffered from large explosions around a similar
| timeframe.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| "Do not look into laser with remaining eye."
|
| "Do not gaze upon meteorite armageddon through window
| with remaining face."
| sbierwagen wrote:
| Nukemap has settings for airburst height (under "advanced
| options"): https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
|
| For a 10mt explosion at 20km height it shows a third
| degree burn radius of 27km. Chelyabinsk was ~0.5kt at
| 29km. Larger objects are expected to penetrate further
| into the atmosphere before exploding:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_air_burst
|
| I'm not sure how much time you'd have to evaluate size or
| distance, videos of Chelyabinsk show it pretty bright
| just a second or two after becoming visible. Length of
| infrared exposure determines severity of burn, so
| reacting early is helpful.
| thuccess129 wrote:
| The stream had no audio and my brainchip implant couldn't
| feel me the salty smell of the sea and the blast of wind on
| my face.
| kzrdude wrote:
| One thing I usually highlight about the Moon Landing (1969)
| is that the delivered not just people on the moon, but it was
| broadcast live!
|
| We can still appreciate that as a mind-blowing achievement!
| And it might put a damper on the enthusiasm for a delayed
| video of a wet drone.. :)
| usrusr wrote:
| For me it was "so I'm living in the future, and look how
| relatively boring it is". Boring compared to the wild storm
| chaser fantasies of Bruce Sterling, and fortunately boring.
|
| But well, there are still ten years to go until 2031, let's
| hope we still won't be enticed to think about an F-6 by
| then...
| davidw wrote:
| My wife was hiking in the high mountains here in Oregon,
| above 2000 meters, and received a video call from her mom who
| was in Florence, Italy.
|
| I am old enough to remember rotary phones and I am not _that_
| old.
| krasin wrote:
| Based on the photo from the NASA website ([1]), they use a
| Thales Satellite modem ([2]). My best guess it's VesseLINK 700
| ([3]) that uses Iridium Certus constellation ([4]) and costs
| around $8K ([5]).
|
| Key Features:
|
| * Robust, Light-Weight Communications for at Sea Operations
|
| * Certus 700 Services (352 kbps Up/704 kbps Down & 256 kbps
| Streaming Capable)
|
| *100% Global Satellite Coverage and Low Latency for Critical
| Data and Voice Communications
|
| 1. https://blogs.nasa.gov/earthexpeditions/wp-
| content/uploads/s...
|
| 2. https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/markets/market-specific-
| solut...
|
| 3.
| https://www.thalesgroup.com/sites/default/files/database/doc...
|
| 4.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellatio...
|
| 5. https://seatech.systems/product/thales-vesselink-700-for-
| iri...
| moffkalast wrote:
| Just stick a Starlink antenna on it, dummies. /s
| ttul wrote:
| Noting the satire marker, I'll just say for completeness:
| Starlink consumes 100W continuously to operate its phased
| array beam and the computation requires to drive it. That's
| too much power for a sail drone.
| C19is20 wrote:
| I always thought /s was 'sarcastic'. And, oh so very
| often, very not needed.
| [deleted]
| amenghra wrote:
| Just harvest the hurrican's windpower /s
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| It's really not. Assuming your power source has the
| required amperage, short, infrequent bursts are much more
| effective than continuous operation. In embedded systems,
| it's all about duty cycle, and by that metric, Starlink
| blows the Thales modem out of the water.
|
| The Thales VesseLink modem they used consumes 65W
| nominal/120W maximum. It offers a connection speed of a
| couple hundred kbps, so sending up a video file of a
| fixed size will require it to be on for quite a while -
| Assuming 200 kbps average, and a 360 MB video, that's 4
| hours of uploading or 260 Watt-hours. Also, it's 12x9x2",
| and weighs 7.5 lbs; this is a boat not a hobby
| quadcopter. 260 Watt-hours is a lot; that's like 3 laptop
| batteries, but that's still smaller than the modem
| itself.
|
| Starlink does consume 100W, but offers a connection speed
| of about 200 Mbps. The 360 MB video upload could complete
| in 14.4 seconds, which consumes 100 W * 14.4 seconds /
| 3600 seconds/hour = 0.4 Watt-hours. It is significantly
| larger, and it would probably have a harder time handling
| rough seas (not to mention saltwater intrusion), but
| that's a lot less power.
|
| Whichever modem you're using, you'd want to turn it on
| infrequently.
|
| Edit: The Saildrone product brief is here:
|
| https://assets.website-
| files.com/5beaf972d32c0c1ce1fa1863/61...
|
| It describes a 23' or 7m boat. The 33'/10m larger version
| has 300W continuous sensor power/2kW peak available from
| the solar panels, which appear to be of a comparable size
| to those on the Saildrone.
| max-ibel wrote:
| This particular saildrone seems to be a larger model: 72'
| long.
| ttul wrote:
| Oh, on second thought this boat is a beast. It has a 75
| HP diesel engine in it, along with the solar panels. It
| can surely crank out 100W continuously forever. Sadly,
| Starlink is not for mobile use.
| krasin wrote:
| Starlink will be available for marine uses:
| https://www.pcmag.com/news/spacex-preps-ruggedized-
| starlink-...
|
| It will be a life-changing event for maritime robotics,
| assuming they don't get too greedy.
| willis936 wrote:
| Jeez. When I work with Iridium I'm constrained to 300 byte
| messages (for budgetary reasons).
| walrus01 wrote:
| This is using the next-generation Iridium network which is
| capable and marketed for offshore maritime, for aviation
| purposes, land mobile data, land based portable terminals
| (where people would previously need an INMARSAT BGAN), etc.
|
| It is still very costly on a dollars per MB of data
| transferred basis.
| krasin wrote:
| Yes, me too. But Iridium recently (2017-2018) launched the
| new constellation that they call Iridium NEXT which
| supports L-Band and offers significantly more bandwidth.
| So, it's now possible to get a 1GB plan for ~$1300/month
| ([2]). This obvisouly means that one needs to use a
| different modem. RockBLOCK modems are great but limited to
| the Iridium "Classic" with these tight limits and insane
| prices (~$1/KB).
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constell
| atio...
|
| 2. https://www.satphonestore.com/tech-browsing/satellite-
| intern...
| JoeDaDude wrote:
| Per this little video, the Thales Vessel link does some
| 350kbs uplink and downlink.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoVbH7gFrVY
| claudiusd wrote:
| I would bet that modem is using a phased antenna array [1]
| (I'm guessing this is what "solid state, no moving parts"
| means on the product page). With the right sensors (gyros,
| etc), a solid-state system like that should be able to keep a
| pretty tight lock on the satellite even in the roughest
| conditions.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phased_array
| JoeDaDude wrote:
| Look at the Terminal Equipment tab of this page linked
| below. It shows the Cobham ( different manufacturer from
| Thales) antenna for the same satellite service. It looks
| like it is a set of six or so patch antennas. It's not
| clear if it is switching between patches or combining the
| signals to/from the patches. If the latter, it is indeed a
| phased array. That seems likely because the other
| manufacturer, Intellian, describes their antenna as a
| 12-element phased array. I'm guessing the Thales also uses
| a phased array.
|
| https://www.otesat-maritel.com/article/2128/iridium-certus
| mbesto wrote:
| Damnit, this is why love HN.
| walrus01 wrote:
| It's great tech. Same next generation Iridium network is used
| for offshore maritime, aviation, land mobile data, etc. Lots
| of places where a traditional two way VSAT is much too large.
| Its main market competition is the INMARSAT I-4 and I-5
| series satellites and BGAN network.
|
| The main problem with it is the very high dollars per
| megabyte cost. If you're a billionaire or a nation state with
| a $30 million Gulfstream jet and an Iridium terminal on it
| you probably don't care. But it can be cost prohibitive for
| any appreciable amount of data transfer from remote
| scientific systems.
| algo_trader wrote:
| If someone comes along with a plan and budget for 10K drones
| does the system have spare capacity ?!
| barkingcat wrote:
| at 8000 each for hardware, that's 80 Million, plus the data
| plan charges for each line.
|
| With that amount of money I'm sure the system would be able
| to grow to accommodate (including sending up more
| satellites) if only to make sure the money doesn't go to
| another competitor.
| zz865 wrote:
| Its a cool project, but the footage isn't that great. Youtube has
| a bunch of bigger storm & wave footage from ships.
| clementmas wrote:
| That reminded me of my team rowing across the Atlantic ocean but
| watching the storm video again doesn't seem that impressive in
| comparison: https://youtu.be/3barM5C7ecg?t=184
| Ronson wrote:
| Wow that is an amazing achievement, those waves are scary,
| especially being so far from assistance in such a small boat.
| Did you manage the whole journey without major issue?
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| That's incredible. I have so many questions!
| nkozyra wrote:
| Wow that looked amazing. How monotonous was it on a day to day
| basis?
| clementmas wrote:
| You don't really think in terms of days but 2-hours shifts.
| And some of them felt like they would never end, especially
| in the dark at night
| laylomo2 wrote:
| I imagine there were no 8 hours of sleep for anyone during
| that time. How did you train yourselves to operate at that
| capacity with such little sleep?
| finnh wrote:
| That's excellent! I rowed in high school and college... but
| this is very next level. I love seeing stuff like this,
| thanks for posting the vid here!
| jacquesm wrote:
| I'm seriously impressed you pulled that off in something that
| small. I know that people have done it in smaller boats but
| rowing a vessel in waves many times the length of the ship must
| present some pretty interesting challenges.
| clementmas wrote:
| Our 9m boat was surprisingly stable even in 6m waves. As long
| as you don't rotate sideways the risk of capsizing is pretty
| low
| jacquesm wrote:
| Ah 9m, ok, that's bigger than it looked on the video. As
| long as the boat is longer than the waves you are dealing
| with you should be relatively stable.
| hef19898 wrote:
| You are, still pretty scary at first. I tried our kayak
| for the first time this summer at sea, maybe 1 m waves or
| so. Boat is 5 odd meters, and at first it fleet _scary_ ,
| was fun afterwards so! Quite a change after lakes, rivers
| and maybe some wind at most. Being sideways, you have to
| return at some point, was adventurous for a noon at sea
| kayaking like myself!
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| This is a travesty! I want names! Each one of these drones should
| have a name!
|
| If a cyclone can get her name, why not the drone that went
| through the cyclone?!
|
| Therefore Saildrone Explorer SD 1045 from here on is named _Tippy
| McTipity_.
|
| Cheers to Tippy! Well done.
|
| (Pay attention Ms. Allen. The NOAA could use a good public naming
| promo for any other drones that did cool stuff!)
| wwalexander wrote:
| Very cool, but obviously hard to tell scale. Does anyone with
| more expertise have an idea of how large those swells/waves might
| be?
|
| Edit, after RTFA:
|
| > SD1045 is battling 50 foot waves
| krzcinski wrote:
| It's incredible that such a small thing can sail in this
| conditions.
| guenthert wrote:
| I'd think it's robust enough to withstand a couple turn overs.
| Capsizes, my apologies, land rat here.
| anuvrat1 wrote:
| For sure movies have distorted my perception of danger these
| waves are supposed to be deadly Tbh was expecting some sort of
| mayhem
| ebcase wrote:
| If you're in the SF Bay Area and want to see these in-person,
| Saildrone HQ is in Alameda:
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/Saildrone/@37.7829877,-122...
|
| (I don't think they have public tours, but I could be wrong)
|
| Usually you can spot the drones in Seaplane Lagoon, and the water
| nearby.
| j10c wrote:
| @dang, hey please reset word wraping in title, its causing word
| break in most of the titles in mobile which reduces speed of
| checking them quickly.
| occams_chainsaw wrote:
| are you speed reading?
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| Regardless of reading style, it's pretty choppy to read
|
| "Ocean drone captures video from inside a hurr icane"
| j10c wrote:
| I generally skip words to increase my speed. If anything
| interesting is spotted, I dive deep into it. Its just a
| learned habit by consistent reading of decade. though not as
| fast as speed readers, It saves a lot of time.
| marcodiego wrote:
| Makes me remember of twister and an era when we had SGI.
| wiz21c wrote:
| In the article they say there are 50feet waves. But it's hard to
| appreciate that on the video. Is there a way to better look at
| these picture to get a better sense of the scale ?
| thanatos519 wrote:
| If you look closely there is a banana visible in the ocean for
| a couple of seconds.
| Disruptive_Dave wrote:
| Highly recommend HBO's new mini series (documentary) about big
| wave surfing [0]. Lots of heavy wave action in it and they
| delve into the very unscientific manner in which surfers and
| surfing orgs "measure" these monsters.
|
| [0] https://www.hbo.com/100-foot-wave
| bjarneh wrote:
| I agree; it almost looks like some random _heavy sea footage_
| from an exterior camera in that "Deadliest catch" show.
| Arnt wrote:
| You don't really see much in real life either. I've been in 10m
| waves, and didn't see much. The waves breaking over the entire
| boat is something I remember very clearly, but not from seeing.
| It just looked chaotic.
| DrBazza wrote:
| Well, the Draupner Wave brushed the under side of an oil rig,
| if that helps. That was a rogue wave and they get a lot
| _higher_.
|
| There are also the opposite - rogue holes - the trough part of
| a wave. Imagine being in a boat and dropping 100ft.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_wave
| jacquesm wrote:
| Makes you wonder how many ships got lost before structural
| integrity improved to the point where a ship would survive
| that kind of impact.
| eightails wrote:
| There was an interesting article in Quanta a while back on
| this topic.
|
| > Researchers have since determined that rogue waves
| probably claimed 22 supercarriers and more than 500 lives
| in the second half of the 20th century alone.
|
| https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-grand-unified-theory-
| of-r...
| christophilus wrote:
| I was thinking, this would rock in 3D/VR.
| AYBABTME wrote:
| Wave height/sea state is notoriously difficult to present on
| video in a way that renders justice. I think it's due to lack
| of gimbal and probably focal length vs. field of view, and lack
| of depth perception.
| boringg wrote:
| Thats why there's always debate how big a surfers wave was,
| and then how do you measure from the front or the back?
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Lack of horizon, lack of depth, lack of sense of motion, and
| lack of anything to measure scale against, all make video
| incapable of conveying true scale.
|
| Though when you _can_ get those elements together, the result
| is gut-clenching. What does it for me is Big Wave surfing at
| Nazare. Camera 's on land, horizon is fixed, motion is clear,
| and the ant on the face itself gives perspective. I almost
| have the opposite problem, the image registers as synthetic
| or manipulated, even when it isn't:
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=pZTx0XBx4hk
| LightG wrote:
| Of course, absolutely impressive.
|
| But the inside of the storm looks like some huge waves crashing
| all around. Am I missing the lightbulb moment?
|
| Maybe a potential pivot to sell Saildrone to storm-chasing,
| surfer, adrenaline junkies. That'd be one helluva ride!
| TedShiller wrote:
| Neat. But what happens to this drone after the hurricane, or when
| it stops phoning home due to UV damage, drained batteries, or
| gunked up solar cells?
|
| Does it just become another member of the Great Garbage Patch?
| programmarchy wrote:
| The video is cool, but seems like the real value is what the
| sensors are picking up.
| jcun4128 wrote:
| These drones are so cool, saw them in a Bloomberg video. I hope
| to get into that one day even just on my own in my creek/pond
| (submarine type).
| ralusek wrote:
| Cool footage, but I find it very hard to believe that there has
| never been footage from inside a hurricane. Is this constrained
| by some strange definition of what it means to be "inside?"
| GeorgeRichard wrote:
| > the first video footage gathered by an uncrewed surface
| vehicle (USV)
| [deleted]
| teekert wrote:
| I was even a tad disappointed. I was expecting a sudden
| clearing in the clouds, the sun serenely shining down, and the
| sounds of distant angels singing before the little boat would
| hit a dark storm-wall on the other side, entering the chaos
| again.
|
| Expectations really taint one's experience in matters like
| these.
| amelius wrote:
| Yes, some movies depict the "eye" of the hurricane like that.
|
| Wikipedia has this to say:
|
| > Though the eye is by far the calmest part of the storm,
| with no wind at the center and typically clear skies, on the
| ocean it is possibly the most hazardous area. In the eyewall,
| wind-driven waves all travel in the same direction. In the
| center of the eye, however, the waves converge from all
| directions, creating erratic crests that can build on each
| other to become rogue waves. The maximum height of hurricane
| waves is unknown, but measurements during Hurricane Ivan when
| it was a Category 4 hurricane estimated that waves near the
| eyewall exceeded 40 m (130 ft) from peak to trough.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_(cyclone)
| andrew_ wrote:
| Having been in 8 foot seas on a small craft, this video is
| terrifying and astounding all in one.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| Carried out by NOAA which is part of the Department of Commerce:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Oceanic_and_Atmospher...
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