Wave Glider Celebrates 10 Year PacX Anniversary
The Wave Glider celebrates the anniversary for the record-breaking journey across the Pacific Ocean
December 2022 marked the ten-year anniversary of the Liquid Robotics Wave Glider named ’Papa Mau’ completing its world record-breaking journey across the Pacific Ocean. Four wave-powered Uncrewed Surface Vehicles (USV) travelled from San Francisco to the Hawaiian Islands, at which point they parted ways as one pair set out for Japan, while the other two continued their route to Australia.
While the Pacific Crossing (PacX) to Hawaii already secured a world record for distance by an unmanned wave powered vehicle, the unprecedented voyage of 9,000 nm to Australia set a Guinness Book World Record for the longest distance ever travelled by an unmanned autonomous surface vehicle. Representatives from BlueZone Group (previously UVS) were present at Harvey Bay, QLD when the Papa Mau Wave Glider was pulled from the water after its record-breaking journey.
Liquid Robotics co-founder and former CEO Graham Hine said of the voyage, “The purpose of the voyage was to foster new scientific explorations and discoveries by collecting vast amounts of ocean data. PacX was truly an inspiration from a scientific perspective and allowed us to recognise the possibilities of ocean monitoring that could be achieved with the Wave Glider technology.”
The PacX voyage showed the capability and durability of Wave Gliders. Being at sea for over 12-months, they were able to continue to collect and manage data throughout the voyage with real-time communications. The Wave Glider is designed to support a wide-range of sensors and payloads and can continue without human intervention for many months at a time.
Liquid Robotics CEO Shane Goodenough said “We are immensely proud of what the Wave Glider was able to achieve 10 years ago and how our technology has evolved over the last decade. What started as a scientific pursuit has become an extremely versatile ocean surface vehicle that allows us to collect and communicate a variety of ocean data”. The four robots’ combined journey was intended to showcase the Wave Glider’s research, reconnaissance, and other capabilities.
Read More:
PacX Turns 10: Record-breaking Pacific Crossing Wave Glider Celebrates Anniversary
The first of four autonomous Wave Glider robots successfully crosses Pacific Ocean
Robot Boats Survive Epic Voyage Across the Pacific – So Far
