One of the world's biggest underwater robots, the new UT-1 Ultra Trencher weighs 60 tons on land, stands 18 feet tall, and measures nearly 26 feet wide. The remote-controlled Ultra Trencher can also rumble along at 2 to 3 knots, but its main job is cutting trenches for oil pipelines or telecommunications cables.
After being dispatched from a boat, the mobile-home-sized robot, which can work up to a mile below the surface, propels itself down to the ocean floor, lands over a pipeline, and shoots high-pressure jets of water on either side of the pipe, digging holes up to several feet wide and deep. The robot buries the pipeline or cable, protecting it from fishing, currents and other potentially damaging events.Interested in an undersea workhorse? Check out the specs here.
Via Robots.net
Stay up to date on the latest news of the future of science and technology from your iPhone with full articles, images and offline viewing
Carry everything you need to make a smart buy on HDTVs, cameras and 14 other product categories right in your pocket
Featuring every article from the magazine and website, plus links from around the Web. Also see our PopSci DIY feed
Share links with friends, comment on stories and more
Innovative fixes for five of the country's biggest infrastructure messes, plus a look the quest to read the human mind, the LCD screen that might finally kill paper dead, and the world's scariest science.
Read the issue here.