Chinese specialists have successfully launched 116 underwater drones, which travelled along a predetermined route completely autonomously and in synchronisation for 34 minutes. The launch has been entered into the Guinness World Records, reported Kazinform, a partner of TV BRICS, citing the website of China’s Northwestern Polytechnical University.
The launch involved the TH-618 autonomous underwater drone, developed with the participation of staff from the university. After being launched into the water, the drones switched to unmanned operation.
Each drone used real-time visual perception technology to form a formation independently. They all moved in an organised manner underwater. After 34 minutes of steady, uninterrupted movement, the unmanned vehicles successfully covered more than 500 metres along a pre-set route.
Movement in an underwater environment presents a number of challenges, including high water pressure, poor visibility and the absence of wireless communication, which makes it impossible to transmit commands to the vehicles in real time. Under such conditions, ensuring fully autonomous, sustained and stable coordinated movement of dozens or even hundreds of vehicles in a specified formation over an extended period remains one of the key challenges in the field of intelligent underwater systems worldwide.
The experiment carried out by Chinese engineers marked a new breakthrough in the field of large-scale coordinated movement of unmanned underwater systems: for the first time, the stable operation of an underwater group comprising more than 100 vehicles was demonstrated.