Hey There: Here Comes the Solar Fish  E-mail
Written by Hank Green   
Tuesday, 11 September 2007


IBM has teamed up with a non-profit organization that studies the health of estuaries and rivers to create several solar-powered, high-tech, autonomous vehicles for keeping tabs on the health of the Hudson River.

A 315 mile stretch of the river would be constantly monitored by solar-powered submersibles that would then beam data back to a central location for processing by IBM's special software. It's the first system of it's kind, but I've long expected to see this kind of monitoring in all our waterways.

Solar power allows the vehicles to be completely autonomous (as long as their programming is good enough) and they will basically be able to operate on their own for the life of their batteries. The submersible craft was actually built by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Don't be surprised if, in the next fifty years, you start running accross these things in rivers, estuaries, reservoirs, lakes and oceans near you.

Via TreeHugger
Comments (2)add
They'll be great for monitoring companie
written by weee , September 11, 2007
but I think they might have to camouflage them a bit better!
Woods Hole is my hometown!!
written by Eric , September 12, 2007
WHOI is great!! Woods Hole is an awesome village and I live right next door!! Some of my friends actually work there. Soooooooooo much goes on. Their projects are ubiquitous... It's great that one of these projects made it onto my favorite site!
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Hank Green
About the author:

Hank Green is the founder and chief geek at EcoGeek.org. Aside from being obsessed with saving the planet with technology, he loves to write and make videos. If you want to find out more about him, visit hankgreen.com

 
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