Are you worried about the safety of America’s waters? Rest easy. The overly paranoid folks at the Department of Homeland Security have a plan. Robotic tuna to the rescue! If that doesn’t work, we can try to stop ticking other countries off, but robots always come first cause robots are cool. And because if there were less ticked off folks we would have no reason to pay the DHS to build robot fishes.
A few years back, DHS Science and Technology Directorate started to fund the development of the unmanned underwater vehicle called the BIOSwimmer. The robot was developed by Boston Engineering Corporation’s Advanced Systems Group in Waltham, Massachusetts. Yes, it was inspired by the tuna, but it’s not nearly as tasty. It sports high maneuverability in harsh environments though. You can see the robot tuna in action at about the 2:17 mark in this video clip:
The idea is that it would inspect the interior voids of ships like flooded bilges and tanks, and other hard to reach external areas. The DHS tunabot could also inspect and protect harbors and piers. If it ever hits the seas, it will probably carry out secret tuna missions we will never even hear about.