Scout is an autonomous robotic boat designed to complete the first autonomous transatlantic crossing. The project was started by Tiverton students Dylan Rodriguez and Max Kramers in 2010 with the goal of creating an autonomous craft to make the journey from

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...

to Sanlucar de Barrameda, Spain. After several iterations, Scout's first transatlantic attempt was launched from Sakonnet Point on June 29, 2013 but unfavourable weather conditions forced the team to recover the craft the same day. A second launch was made July 4, 2013 but after two days a technical failure forced another recovery effort and a redesign of parts of the vessel. The third attempt was launched during the early morning of August 24, 2013 and is currently in progress but has already earned the record for distance of an unmanned Atlantic naval voyage.

Technical specifications

Scout is based on a custom carbon fiber hull with a Divinycell foam core and measures 12.8 feet long, and 25 inches wide and weighs 160 pounds. The vessel design incorporates a

bulb keel 200px, Flat Keel bulb A bulb keel is a keel, usually made with a high aspect ratio foil, that contains a ballast-filled bulb at the bottom, usually teardrop shaped. The purpose of the bulb keel is to place the ballast as low as possible, therefor ...

to right the craft in heavy seas, and propulsion is provided by an electric

trolling motor A trolling motor is a self-contained marine propulsion unit that includes an electric motor, propeller and control system, and is affixed to an angler's boat, either at the bow or stern. A gasoline-powered outboard used in trolling, if it is no ...

Arduino Arduino () is an open-source hardware and software company, project, and user community that designs and manufactures single-board microcontrollers and microcontroller kits for building digital devices. Its hardware products are licensed unde ...

microcontrollers and a

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

receiver, and telemetry data is sent back to the team using the

Iridium satellite constellation The Iridium satellite constellation provides L band voice and data information Pass (spaceflight), coverage to satellite phones, pagers and integrated transceivers over the entire surface of Earth. Iridium Communications owns and operates the Sa ...

and provided live on the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...

References

External links

Scout TransatlanticLive Tracking
Unmanned surface vehicles of USA Robotics {{boat-stub