Testing
New Technology
Written
by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel
Engineering design companies Draper
and Sprout have joined forces to develop the prototype for a
remote-controlled, submersible drone that can collect and analyze microplastics
in the ocean.
The autonomous underwater vehicle
(AUV) is designed to help scientists determine where the microplastics are coming
from and how to prevent them from entering the water.
Once deployed, the drone's job is to
skim the top nine meters of water, searching for microplastics and testing
them, while simultaneously transmitting GPS coordinates.
With thrusters on either side of the
unit and rudders for steering, the drone can navigate coastal regions and
rivers, moving from place-to-place.
Draper, a non-profit, spin-off lab
from MIT, is known for many research innovations, including navigation and
flight-control systems for the astronauts on the Apollo 11 mission.
Sprout Studios, a Boston-based
multidisciplinary design company, has tackled problems ranging from making
low-cost energy products to creating devices to deliver cell-based cancer
immunotherapy treatments.
The team's ray shaped AUV drone was
listed as one of the Best Inventions of 2019 by Time magazine.
Working with the Environmental
Protection Agency, the drone prototype has recently begun testing in Hawaii.
In addition to gathering
microplastics data, Draper/Sprout hopes that it can use the information to
develop "something that's comparable to the World Air Quality Index. A
kind of global weather map" – to measure plastics pollution levels.
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