The ASV Roboat, dubbed as the world’s leading robotic sailboat, will be setting its sails once again on July 9. The fully autonomous and unmanned sailing boat, developed by INNOC in 2006, will be heading off to the Baltic Sea to cover 150 nautical miles on the high seas for up to 100 hours without interruption. The ASV Roboat packs an array of sensors, communications hardware, and solar panels. The solar panels provide up to 285 W of power and its methanol fuel cell delivers 65 W for backup power. Roboat will include a three-stage communication system combining WLAN, UMTS/GPRS and an IRIDIUM satellite communication system for navigation and tracking. Check out a previous video of the ASV Roboat in action after the break.

The sailboat will have to deal with any unforeseen situations and master the complex processes of sailing – from route planning to maneuvering – all without human input. The Austrian Society for Innovative Computer Science or INNOC intends to break the current 78.9 nautical mile world record held by a research group from the ENSTA of France. The ASV Roboat is not just about breaking world records too. The unmanned sailboat will also be used for specific research purposes.

INNOC has partnered with a team of marine biologists from the Oregon State University to study the endangered Harbor Porpoise in the Baltic Sea. The ASV Roboat will be equipped with an underwater microphone to record valuable information about the mammal’s migration routes, pairing sites and communication behavior. The team believes that the ASV Roboat is perfect for the project since it can silently observe the species for long periods of time. And since the ASV Roboat is adapted from a Laerling keelboat that features a 60 kg keel-ballast, the autonomous boat is hard to sink.

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