The Craft

LonelyBot is a solar powered autonomous boat.

She is 23 feet long, with 600W of solar panels on top and a projected cruise speed of just over 3 knots during the daytime.  She's designed to navigate autonomously, while making daily satellite uplinks to transmit data and receive new commands.

She's constructed from a plywood-fiberglass sandwich, using the fairly standard "stitch-n-glue" boat building technique.  Inside a small computer controls the satellite uplink, propulsion and sensor systems, cameras, navigation, power control, etc.  Over 500lbs of batteries store energy for cloudy days, and perhaps to help sprint away from the occasional storm.