Those Ocean-Going Robots We Told You About Just Got Smarter

What could be cooler than solar-and-wave-powered robots that roam the oceans collecting data for climate scientists and oil companies while performing top-secret missions for the military? Here’s what: Ones that can think for themselves.

The robots’ maker, Liquid Robotics, today unveiled its bigger and better next-generation Wave Glider SV3, which packs more computational firepower, a solar-powered thruster and new operating system that endows the bots what the company calls “intelligent autonomy.”

If the surfboard-sized Wave Glider SV3 finds itself on a collision course with an oil tanker, for instance, it can take evasive action on its own rather than email a Liquid Robotics operator in Silicon Valley and wait for a human to move it out of harm’s way.