Naval Veterans Show off Robotic Counterparts at Fleet Week 2009

There's something satisfying about seeing mammoth warships, filled with white lines of sailors standing at attention on deck, ease their way through the busy lanes of the Hudson River, crowds gathered on the shore to watch their progress. Fleet Week 2009that special time when the Navy invades Manhattanends today. Popular Mechanics kept an eye on the action and checked out the aerial and submarine robots that help Marines do their jobs overseas.

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Combat Veteran Drone

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Unmanned aerial vehicles have made hunting for roadside bombs easier. Here, Petty Officer 1st Class John Taylor shows off the Silver Fox, a UAV that can be launched from basically anywhere, including the back of a Humvee. With state-of-the-art aviation technology, the "bird" uses an infrared and high-resolution camera to scope the ground and report information back to the men on land. Because it can be flown autonomously, the Silver Fox keeps Marines from having to investigate dangerous regions physically, saving them from improvised explosive devices. "With two to three people managing the bird, the UAV can sustain any operation, even a nonstop 72-hour mission," Taylor says. He recalls the bird's reliability during his recent tour in Iraq. "The deployment [of the Silver Fox] showed its durability. I've seen birds with wings completely duct-taped. Any problems that we've had, we've been able to fix."

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Underwater Eyes

Think of it as a smart, benign torpedo. The Remote Environmental Measuring Unit (REMUS) is a portable, semi-autonomous robotic submarine designed to survey mission areas and locate underwater mines. The new design of the REMUS includes the latest GPS technology, which allows the sub to help in underwater mapping and to collect information about certain harbors. Operators note that for every hour the REMUS is in the water, personnel spend two hours on postmission analysis (PMA). Most of the analysis can be tedious, often requiring operators to differentiate between rocks and mines, but the REMUS does succeed in providing tactical information and reduces the time it typically takes to clear out bodies of water for mission operations.

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