Barnacles are the bane of seafaring life. That’s why the Office of Naval Research is looking for a way to autonomously scrub a vessel’s hull on a regular basis. Scraping off barnacles improves a ship’s speed and reduces fuel consumption, so it ain’t all about just being tidy.

The Bio-inspired Underwater Grooming (BUG) robot is a good solution. It uses suction to stick to a vessel, and features biofilm detectors and flourometers to help it plot its path toward the buildup. The BUG could clean a vessel during its voyage, saving the Navy money on maintenance costs.

[Dvice]

This entry was posted on Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 11:06 am and is filed under Military. Be sure to subscribe to the Botropolis.com feed because it is really, really awesome. Have something you want to share? Please let us know.

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