Protei is an articulated, opensource autonomous sailing robot, initially designed to cleanup oilspills by puling a long oil absorbent boom.
Mind boggling innovations:
- Steerage at the bow, which sounds crazy to my mind, but actually enables the boat to steer while towing a long, heavy object, like the oil absorbent boom.
- Articulated hull so that the boat can maintain power while tacking into the wind.
Crazy, brilliant stuff.