How to Destroy Underwater Mines

If the Japanese are sometimes hilariously straining to humanize the robots making them sing, dance or even make love, the Americans seem to have always a more pragmatic approach.

The last "American" robot, a prototype, was conceived to destroy underwater mines which could kill Marines and Navy SEALs as they come on shore. A sort of suicidal robot that we might compare to a kamikaze.

The device is 3-foot-long and can be conducted with a simple joystick as shown in a demonstration made at a gathering of researchers who design robots for military use. It seems that this is the future for the underwater bombed detection which will replace the mineswiping ships and the specialized divers.

The first important test for underwater autonomous vehicles was at Um Quasar, Irak debarkation when the U.S. Navy cleared the water for a British ship carrying 200 tons of food and emergency supplies. These devices helped to clear the water in only a 16-hour search which normally would have taken 21 days for specialized divers.

Now these devices are used to distinct mines from the shore clutter but in the future they will be equipped with explosives to detonate the mines. "The closer in you get to any port or harbor, the greater amount of clutter you will encounter - tires, rocks, coral reefs - there can be so much clutter you would not believe it," declared Daniel Broadstreet,a specialist in neutralizing underwater mines. And more: "To screen out all that clutter is a huge job and it takes some very, very technologically advanced sensors."

And for that, the military is expected to spend more than $50 million for the underwater autonomous technology in the next five years. One of the most promising robots is Transphibian, which is now developed and presented by Swean as " a good example of a hybrid concept, it can swim in the water and it can crawl on the sea floor".