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nU-Boats is developing novel inflatable autonomous undersea platforms, “balloons that go down”. Built like modern semi-rigid airships from high-performance polymer-coated fabrics but hydraulically inflated with various incompressible buoyant liquids they share similarities with the bathyscaphe Trieste that reached the deepest point in the ocean ~7 miles down some 50+ years ago, but unmanned and not made of steel. Our current focus is repeating the 1969 Gulf Stream drift mission of the manned submarine Ben Franklin (PX-15) as a PoC with a ~2 meter diameter fabric sphere rigidly inflated with fresh water that will travel ~1,500 miles over ~30 days from Miami to Halifax submerged ~200 meters deep and propelled only by the current. SphereOne will employ a buoyancy engine for depth control and have small thrusters mounted to provide full six-axis maneuverability, but not for propulsion. Inflatables are easily, rapidly and cost-effectively scaled to potentially enormous size, eventually to that of the rigid airships of a century ago that were ~1,000 feet long…the size of an aircraft carrier. A variety of bulk cargo could be transported “for free” by drifting submerged in and switching among ocean currents, both near surface and deep water, unaffected by surface storms and without concern for collisions to decarbonize marine shipping. nU-Boats’ mobile Lagrangian drifters will also have research and military applications incorporating a wide variety of sensors and other capabilities.
