TSAMTO, June 24. The underwater drone-glider for the inspection of radiation-hazardous objects for the Ministry of Emergency Situations will be ready for mass production in three to four years.
This was announced in an interview with RIA Novosti by Vladislav Zanin, advisor to the General Director of the Research and Production Enterprise of Underwater Technologies "Oceanos".
"At the moment, the issue of converting prototypes into specialized equipment is being considered. This should happen within the next three to four years," said V. Zanin.
Earlier, such a drone was presented at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum. According to the developer, the first prototypes have already worked on the exercises of the Ministry of Emergency Situations.
As the agency notes, the feature of the new drone is that it moves with the help of a wing system. The torpedo-shaped device fills its ballast tank and due to this is immersed in water. The wings prevent it from going to the bottom and transform vertical movement into horizontal. When the device reaches a certain depth, the ballast tank is emptied and it floats up, but again not vertically, but at an angle.
"We can program him to make five or 10 dives and on one of the dives he came to the surface and transmitted the information he had accumulated, as well as received his coordinates. Because during the time spent underwater, no matter how good the navigation system is, an error still runs in. He eliminates it and continues to work," V. Zanin told RIA Novosti.
He specified that underwater spectrographs are used to monitor radiation objects. They do not have an instantaneous effect, so such a device must gain a certain exposure time to determine the presence of radionuclides. The underwater glider, which is equipped with spectrographs, has a special system that would keep it in one place underwater.
As RIA Novosti notes, the Ministry of Emergency Situations has been carrying out the task of monitoring underwater potentially dangerous objects for more than a decade. These include radiation facilities in the Kara Sea, that is, flooded reactor compartments, solid radioactive waste, as well as chemical weapons in the Baltic.
Usually expeditions are equipped to monitor these objects. However, according to V. Zanin, they can be performed only once or twice a year. In addition, they are expensive and short-term. The robot's autonomy is at least a month. In addition, the information is promptly transmitted to the computing center.
The developer estimated the needs of the Ministry of Emergency Situations in such equipment at several dozen cars. At the same time, the glider can be used not only for monitoring underwater potentially dangerous objects, but for environmental control in general. In addition, it can be used to search for minerals, including hydrocarbons on the shelf, RIA Novosti reports.