Polar Robots to Explore the Arctic

Roland Piquepaille writes "It's now almost certain that the world's ice shelves are melting. And while satellites provide lots of data about their evolution, ground-based weather stations could be even more useful. But if scientists can no longer stay on fragile and volatile ice sheets, what can they do? They can use specially designed robots called SnoMotes developed by U.S. researchers. 'The SnoMotes work as a team, autonomously collaborating among themselves to cover all the necessary ground to gather assigned scientific measurements.' More importantly, a SnoMote is an 'expendable rover that wouldn't break a research team's bank if it were lost during an experiment,' according to the lead researcher." Reader coondoggie adds a link to another story on these robots at Network World.

Polar Robots

[quarrel (194077)]

'cause like, polar robots have something better to explore than like the *poles* ?

--Q

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[ArcherB (796902)]

'cause like, polar robots have something better to explore than like the *poles* ?

--Q

I'm Polish, you insensitive clod!

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[Aqua_boy17 (962670)]

...specially designed robots called SnoMotes

If the ice really is that thin, then maybe they should think about renaming them "SnoMores".

Extreme temperatures

[RandoX (828285)]

Wonder what those temperatures will do to the battery life? Could a battery compartment warmer allow more battery life than it costs?

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[scubamage (727538)]

Batteries at lower temperatures tend to have longer lives, don't they? I know on most rechargables you can toss the battery into a freezer to grow the primer charge enough for it to actually charge on a charger. Or am I wrong?

Re:Extreme temperatures

[Nos. (179609)]

It sort of depends. If you're using the battery in the cold, it will discharge more quickly. If you're storing the battery, it will last longer in the cold. That's why those of us in a cold climate sometimes use a battery blanket (electric warmer) to keep the battery warm on those cold mornings. http://chemistry.about.com/od/howthingsworkfaqs/f/coldbattery.htm [about.com]

Re:Extreme temperatures

[plopez (54068)]

Batteries at lower temperatures tend to have longer lives, don't they?

Chemistry 101, lower temperatures mean lower reaction rates. Lower reaction rates mean less voltage, power etc.

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[Comboman (895500)]

Lower reaction rates also mean lower self-discharge (leakage) rates, which is what I think the GP was referring to.

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[frosty_tsm (933163)]

Lower reaction rates also mean lower self-discharge (leakage) rates, which is what I think the GP was referring to.

In other words, it was Physics 101 and not Chemistry 101. :-)

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[OrangeTide (124937)]

You can extract less useful energy out of a cold battery. It tends to dip below a point where you can only get minuscule current much more quickly when trying to use a cold cell.

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[Gat0r30y (957941)]

While the SnoMotes are expected to pass their first real field test in Alaska next month, a heartier, more cold-resistant version will be needed for the Antarctic and other well below zero climates, Howard said. These new rovers would include a heater to keep circuitry warm enough to function and sturdy plastic exterior that wouldnâ(TM)t become brittle in extreme cold.

So yes. Yes indeed a warmer will be necessary when going to the Antarctic, but not for the Arctic. On a not quite completely unrelated note, I wonder if they could strap a little wind power generator to these suckers - it could really extend their usability in the field.

Robots, What Can't They Do?

[TheLazySci-FiAuthor (1089561)]

...my job yet, that's what :P

When machines first began taking over jobs during the inception of the industrial revolution, I recall there being much resistance.

I wonder, as robots do begin to take the remaining jobs, will the same resistance be encountered?

I, for one, so welcome our robotic, network-administering, garbage-collecting, smooth-jazz-composing, polar-region-exploring robot overlords.

Glorified Microscope

[bsDaemon (87307)]

A robot that goes out to collect data is just another scientific instrument to be used. Ultimately, people are still going to have to make sense of the data.

It takes a certain kind of person to want to go out into extreme conditions to take measurements. Being able to make meaningful conclusions based on them in the field when you have other things to worry about also takes a special kind of person.

Robots can go out, measure, and send back to you in your comfy office. The only sad thing is that we're moving towards a world of astronomers without astronauts, so to speak.

Without the adventure there is a lot less to inspire 8 year olds -- imagine if the draw to NASA had been "hey, kids! you can wear starched shirts and use a slide rule!" instead of "you can be a kick-ass fighter pilot, get a FREE Corvette and wear an Omega watch!"

The reality is that even the astronauts had to put on the starch and take out the slide rule, but that's not what you want to show kids up front.

That its being shown to them now that space is mostly going to just get the machine treatment and astronauts aren't going to do much past float around not be able to go to the bathroom for a few weeks, its small wonder that the smart kids who have the wanderlust as well look at Marine Bio as the new Apollo.

When I was substitute teaching about a year ago lots of kids wanted to be marine biologists. none of them were saying astronaut anymore.

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[ColdWetDog (752185)]

I, for one, so welcome our robotic,

network-administering,

I'm pretty sure our current network admin guy is a robot. I ask him the same questions, he never answers except to grunt, moan and mutter "just reboot the damn thing". Already done.

garbage-collecting

Now there you're thinking. A roomba on steroids. Watch out slow moving cats!

smooth-jazz-composing

nope, too complicated. Try hip-hop. Should be able to write a BASIC program in about 30 seconds that will get you most of the way there.

polar-r

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[ColdWetDog (752185)]

Three lines:

My BASIC is pretty rusty, but here goes:

10 BEEP
20 PAUSE RND(X)
30 GOTO 10

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[Gat0r30y (957941)]

Read my sig. Resistance is futile.

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[Cedric Tsui (890887)]

Did you know that the London underground trains are designed to run autonomously? They don't. Because the union had an agreement that all the trains would be driven by them.

Yes, 'robots' are taking over our jobs, and yes there is still quite the resistance.
Not just from the people with the jobs either. A documentary on military UAVs (don't remember the name) suggested that sometime soon, commercial airplanes would fly completely automatically with one bored pilot onboard to make the passengers happy.

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[Hognoxious (631665)]

Did you know that the London underground trains are designed to run autonomously? They don't. Because the union had an agreement that all the trains would be driven by them.

Sounds like a story you heard from a bloke down the pub. Some of the trains are so old they were in use way before that was even a possibility and the stations and track are older still.

The more modern Docklands Light Railway does run automatically.

Add to Endangered List?

[Black-Man (198831)]

With the ice caps melting, do the 'bots get endangered species protection?

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[dreamchaser (49529)]

I'd rather put Roland on that list, or at least his blog reprints of news.

Dammit

[Lilith's Heart-shape (1224784)]

Why did it have to be the Arctic? I had a shoggoth joke ready to go.

Both poles?

[oodaloop (1229816)]

I, for one, welcome our bi-polar robot overlords.

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[shagymoe (261297)]

If they're anything like my bi-polar ex-wife, you're going to regret that.

Exploring the Arctic?

[MiniMike (234881)]

Hope they float, even if they're cheap it's going to add up quickly...

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[mh1997 (1065630)]

I have no reason to doubt reports that the ice at the poles is melting but what is the optimal thickness/surface area of the ice at the poles?

Cheap and expendable....

[EmbeddedJanitor (597831)]

Like meat variety researchers.

And their first assignment . . .

[Gabrill (556503)]

Will be Northrend [worldofwarcraft.com], employed by Thottbot [thottbot.com]!

Aaa!

[Zaurus (674150)]

Phew! At first I read that as "...explore your attic"

Expendable?

[Frosty Piss (770223)]

More importantly, a SnoMote is an 'expendable rover that wouldn't break a research team's bank if it were lost during an experiment,' according to the lead researcher."

So, when the battery gives out or the unit breaks down they are just going to leave these things out in the environment like garbage? Plastic and old batteries? Is this a good idea?

SnoMotes transform and become SnoMoter

[bark76 (410275)]

Do they combine to form a larger kick ass robot? Can they take on Devastator?

This is more significant than it may seem

[querist (97166)]

Allowing these devices to function autonomously is going to be quite interesting. My research involved such issues, but only in mobile software agents. I've read, and been told by some of my then-fellow-students that autonomous land vehicles are more difficult to control than UAVs.

Combining this type of cooperation with autonomous navigation and the "bidding" system described could have some interesting commercial applications, ranging from autonomous "taxis" and delivery vehicles (such as an office-wide or city-wide version of FedEx) to branching out the bidding algorithms to help automate search and rescue efforts. Imagine if a group of specialized bots could be dispatched to look for signs of life - a large number with basic sensory capabilities that could then call in one of a smaller number of more advanced bots? Perhaps even summoning something similar to the much-chided "buddy bot" discussed earler on Slashdot.

I know the "buddy bot" seemed silly, but if you consider the more basic functions it could be very useful. It provides two-way communication with rescuers, so you can say "I'm alone" or "I'm here with two of my children, and one of them is bleeding badly", to "I'm trapped, but I'm otherwise OK." This could help rescuers better prioritise their efforts, much like triage on the field - if someone's bleeding badly, send help sooner, while the person who is trapped but otherwise safe can hang on a little longer, and then two lives are saved instead of only one. (I fully realize that type of situation may not always work out as desired - people lie, things can collapse further, etc.)

I also have to commend Dr. Howard for her creativity in utilizing what was essentially an "off-the-shelf" component for the main device - the little snow-mobile. Very well suited for the majority of the terrain for which it is designed.

There is much more behind this work than first meets the eye. I'll be quite interested in watching this one develop further. Now where did my 9-year-old put that Mindstorms NXT?

Ice caps Melting ? Try again

[Crashmarik (635988)]

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/ [uiuc.edu] Not only are they not melting its pretty obvious the antarctic is in growth.

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[Gat0r30y (957941)]

For anyone curious, the link feeds you straight to a fairly convincing data set which would lead me to the opposite conclusion. Indeed since 2002 it would appear there has been a slight increase in the area of the Antarctic sea ice, here is a neat graph [uiuc.edu]. 6 years does not a significant trend make my friend. Additionally, the overwhelming theme of the data is the significant loss multi-year sea ice - the stuff that sticks around in the summer. How precisely did you interpret this data to draw the conclusion

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[Cedric Tsui (890887)]

Aww. You beat me to the post.
Though. I'd say that's a crappy graph. It shows the data.

This graph [uiuc.edu] shows the trend. It subtracts the total area of sea ice in each season against the average in that season for the last thirty years, and then plots that on a truncated scale.

It clearly shows that the recent blip is (1) a blip and (2) not that big on the scale of things.

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[Lochin Rabbar (577821)]

The graph the parent post links to shows sheet ice area in the antarctic, the one you refer to shows sheet ice anomaly in the arctic. From the two you can work out that total world sheet ice is at a record high since records began. Not that thirty years of records are enough to draw definite conclusions from, gut that data certainly doesn't support the notion of global warming. More like unipolar warming.

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[Cedric Tsui (890887)]

I thought I'd check out your link.
I believe that the sea ice is melting, but agree it's probably grown this year from the crazy cold winter (for which I've yet to hear of a cause).

But I figure. I could be wrong. Maybe the website does have credible information about arctic ice growth.

But it doesn't. The webpage is devoted to showing evidence of arctic ice recession and melt. Specifically, the melting of multi-year sea ice. It has a good number of charts and graphs that clearly show a general trend of shrink

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[phorest (877315)]

I believe that the sea ice is melting, but agree it's probably grown this year from the crazy cold winter (for which I've yet to hear of a cause).

That's a gutsy statement on this science-laden site. Next thing you know creation science will gain credibility here on good-old /.

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[Cedric Tsui (890887)]

What? Admitting that I don't have enough evidence to form a rock solid conclusion?

Ah who am I kidding. You're right. I am a creationist down at heart.

I beLeave! That the flying spaghetti monster... REACHED out brothers. He reached out his noodly appendage for YOU and for YOU and for YOU.

"Almost certain"???

[Snocone (158524)]

It's now almost certain that the world's ice shelves are melting

Funny, that's not what the actual facts show. We're at the highest ever recorded ice cover in the Southern Hemisphere right now:

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/s_plot.html [nsidc.org]

which already more than balances out the Northern Hemisphere's recent decline,

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/n_plot.html [nsidc.org]

and now that the PDO has entered a cool phase,

http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/ [washington.edu]

it's as certain as anything to do with climate is that you're going to see that trend smartly reverse itself as well.

Soooooo ... only for some value of "certain" which equates to "certainly not" is that a defensible statement, methinks.

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[Cedric Tsui (890887)]

Hey cool.
You're the first person I've known to actually explain the sea ice growth idea.

Except. Arg... Your third link doesn't have units on it's figures. I'm guessing the colours indicate temperature anomaly from mean conditions.
Unless red means cold, it looks as if the polar regions would actually be exposed to warmer temperatures resulting in more melt while the equatorial region is a little bit colder than normal.

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[Breakfast Cereal (27298)]

Soooooo ... do I believe you, or do I believe the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and every other scientific association qualified to have an opinion on the matter [wikipedia.org]? I don't have the time or the resources to go measure the ice cap myself, so I have to figure out whether to trust the overwhelming majority of scientists or random people on the internet when it comes to this whole global warming thing.

While you're at it, maybe you could enlighten me on whether the moon landings

Re:

[Karel Jansens (1063154)]

Just check who gets more money for churning out doomsday predictions.

Re:"Almost certain"???

[Snocone (158524)]

Well, first off, your choice is not whether to believe me, your choice is whether to believe the actual facts as observed by satellite. I'll leave that up to you.

And, um, wikipedia may be a even-handed resource for some things, but climate change is not one of them. Indeed, in any academic setting, their conduct would amount to actionable dishonesty. Here, let us relate a first hand account of specifically contrafactual editing on their part: ... I undid Tabletop's undoing of my edits, thinking I had an unassailable response: "Tabletop's changes claim to represent Peiser's views. I have checked with Peiser and he disputes Tabletop's version."

Tabletop undid my undid, claiming I could not speak for Peiser.

Why can Tabletop speak for Peiser but not I, who have his permission?, I thought. I redid Tabletop's undid and protested: "Tabletop is distorting Peiser. She does not speak for him. Peiser has approved my description of events concerning him."

Tabletop parried: "We have a reliable source to this. What Peiser has said to *you* is irrelevant."

Tabletop, it turns out, has another name: Kim Dabelstein Petersen. She (or he?) is an editor at Wikipedia. What does she edit? Reams and reams of global warming pages. I started checking them. In every instance I checked, she defended those warning of catastrophe and deprecated those who believe the science is not settled. I investigated further. Others had tried to correct her interpretations and had the same experience as I -- no sooner did they make their corrections than she pounced, preventing Wikipedia readers from reading anyone's views but her own. When they protested plaintively, she wore them down and snuffed them out.

By patrolling Wikipedia pages and ensuring that her spin reigns supreme over all climate change pages, she has made of Wikipedia a propaganda vehicle for global warming alarmists...

http://www.nationalpost.com/todays_paper/story.html?id=440268&p=1 [nationalpost.com]

A less reliable source of information would be harder to imagine, friend. Even if you refuse to look at the actual facts as I do and I suggest everyone else does, you really need to find an authority to mindlessly follow -- since that's your thing and all -- that at least makes some pretension to actual scientific process.

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[Snocone (158524)]

Nope. Ice shelves break, that's what they do, even in Ice Ages. That there was a 400 km^2 chunk break off recently is really of no great consequence against the overall 1,000,000 km^2 positive anomaly. I suppose it's 0.04% supported, but it's 99.96% not supported. Not being oafish, that seems to me to be pretty clearly in the "not supported" column.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg [uiuc.edu]

When you see the red line on that graph go below the long term average so that the total amou

In related news...

[SeekerDarksteel (896422)]

...Cartesian robots are angry about being passed over for these jobs without even being considered.

Solution to them falling through the ice...

[Akardam (186995)]

It's simple, really. Equip them with jump jets! That way they just fire up the engines, point them towards the ice, and...

... oh.

So why this this a problem?

[imyy4u3 (1290108)]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I think Global Warming is a good thing. Melt all the damn ice shelves for all I care, more fresh water for us all, and better weather to boot. So what if the ocean levels rise a good 5 ft? I think the temperature benefits and the increased fresh water is a small price to pay for that. Plus the land we lose due to islands submerging will be made up in the form of land farther north or south that will now be viable.

Also, if you look at the history of the Earth over the

Can I just point out

[MrKaos (858439)]

That the Associate Professor Ayanna Howard is

1. Quite attractive

2. Comfortable with a screwdriver

3. is fixing a robot

Yet I haven't read a single comment complimenting her obvious geek/nerd eligibility. Fella's OPEN YOUR EYES.

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[dreamchaser (49529)]

None, because we are not causing global warming. Ha, it was a trick question wasn't it!?!

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[Breakfast Cereal (27298)]

I don't think you know how to read the data. This [wikipedia.org] sums it up pretty nicely for the Arctic. For the Antarctic, it's a bit more complicated [wikipedia.org].