????就數(shù)據(jù)（也就是可以利用的、可能產(chǎn)生經(jīng)濟(jì)效益的數(shù)據(jù)）而言，世界上的海洋有點(diǎn)像黑洞。我們知道數(shù)據(jù)就在那里，但我們無法在水平線上看到。我們不知道，從這個時(shí)刻到下一個時(shí)刻，海洋里的任何一個地方在發(fā)生什么事情。海洋擁有重要的食物來源，豐富的能源儲備、關(guān)鍵的航道和推動全球氣候的引擎，但流回海岸的有用信息是如此之少，以至于除了單純的學(xué)術(shù)研究以外，它們無法用于任何目的。

????“你知道嗎？如今在海洋里，通常像加州那么大的地方才有一個傳感器，”Liquid Robotics公司CEO比爾?瓦斯說。他把這種情況比喻成站在死谷里，試圖依靠幾百英里外的溫度計(jì)來弄清楚本地溫度。他以這句話結(jié)束了上述比喻：“你可能覺得沒有58度，但溫度計(jì)卻告訴你有這么高，因?yàn)闇囟扔?jì)在舊金山?！?/p>

????這種數(shù)據(jù)的匱乏使Liquid Robotics公司處于真正獨(dú)一無二的地位。它的“波浪滑翔機(jī)”（Wave Glider）機(jī)器人適于航海，滿載各種傳感器，形如沖浪板，利用新奇的推進(jìn)系統(tǒng)把海浪的運(yùn)動轉(zhuǎn)換成向前行駛的動力，從而創(chuàng)造出了一種不需要添加燃料、只需極少維護(hù)的自控系統(tǒng)，只要海浪繼續(xù)運(yùn)動就行。Liquid Robotics公司已經(jīng)在去年12月證明了這一點(diǎn)。當(dāng)時(shí)，這家公司的一個“波浪滑翔機(jī)”（一年前從舊金山出發(fā)）抵達(dá)澳大利亞布里斯班，自主完成了9,000英里的跨太平洋航行。去年10月，美國國家海洋和大氣管理局（NOAA）的一個“波浪滑翔機(jī)”從桑迪颶風(fēng)的中心穿過，再次證明了它的耐用性。最新版的“波浪滑翔機(jī)”已于本周在華盛頓特區(qū)附近的海軍海空暨太空博物館（Sea-Air-Space）發(fā)布，Liquid Robotics公司幾乎已經(jīng)從機(jī)器人制造商變成了世界上最引人矚目的大數(shù)據(jù)公司之一。

????為什么呢？因?yàn)椤安ɡ嘶铏C(jī)”（Wave Glider）橫跨太平洋之旅只是一段熱身的旅程。Liquid Robotics公司已向美國海軍以及美國國家海洋和大氣管理局（NOAA）出售和租賃了它的機(jī)器人傳感平臺，但對于大多數(shù)應(yīng)用——石油和天然氣勘探、熱帶風(fēng)暴跟蹤與預(yù)測、漁業(yè)管理、海上威脅攔截——而言，客戶真正需要的是數(shù)據(jù)，而不是機(jī)器人。“波浪滑翔機(jī)”可以提供規(guī)模達(dá)百萬兆字節(jié)（TB）級別的數(shù)據(jù)。但是，全新的“波浪滑翔機(jī)SV3”處理數(shù)據(jù)以及與附近其他“波浪滑翔機(jī)”進(jìn)行網(wǎng)絡(luò)傳輸?shù)乃俣榷际前凑誘B級別進(jìn)行的，基本上形成了一個橫跨公海，而且信息豐富的云。

????其中的關(guān)鍵在于一個稱為“天獅星”（Regulus）的獨(dú)家開發(fā)而且基于云的操作系統(tǒng)（由Java之父詹姆斯?高斯林為Liquid Robotics公司設(shè)計(jì)）。這款操作系統(tǒng)使“波浪滑翔機(jī)SV3”能夠表現(xiàn)出相當(dāng)搶眼的自主程度，同時(shí)也保持一個開放源碼的組成部分，從而可以快速部署新的傳感器有效載荷和軟件包，以及運(yùn)行它們所需的迅速可替換軟硬件。傳感器載荷可以包括“波浪滑翔機(jī)SV3”七個模塊化有效載荷單元有空間容納的幾乎任何東西：適用于海洋和氣候科學(xué)的大氣和海洋傳感器，有助于國家安全和海洋環(huán)境保護(hù)目的的攝像機(jī)和聲學(xué)傳感器，或測繪和評估海底及海底下地理情況的儀器。由于基于云的軟件架構(gòu)，一些“波浪滑翔機(jī)SV3”可以攜帶所有這些傳感器，而且在將部分?jǐn)?shù)據(jù)處理任務(wù)轉(zhuǎn)給附近充當(dāng)中央數(shù)據(jù)中心的另一個“波浪滑翔機(jī)”時(shí)，還可以攜帶其他更多的傳感器。

????Where data is concerned -- that is, where usable, potentially profitable data -- the world's oceans are somewhat akin to black holes: We know they are out there, but beyond what we can see at the horizon, we really have no idea what's happening in any one place from one moment to the next. The amount of useful information streaming back to shore from the world's oceans, home to critical food stocks, abundant energy reserves, vital shipping lanes, and the engine driving global climate, is so thin as to be meaningless for all but the most academic purposes.

????"Do you realize that in the ocean today there is often one sensor for an area the size of California?" says Liquid Robotics CEO Bill Vass. He likens this to standing in Death Valley and trying to determine the local temperature via a thermometer that is hundreds of miles away. "It may not feel like 58 degrees to you," he says, capping off the analogy. "But that's what your sensor says because your sensor is in San Francisco."

????This dearth of data places Liquid Robotics in a truly unique position. Its seaworthy, sensor-laden, surfboard-shaped Wave Glider robots use a novel propulsion system to convert the rolling motion of ocean waves into energy for forward thrust, creating a self-contained system that requires no refueling and very little maintenance as long as the ocean continues to move. The company proved this last December when one of its Wave Gliders -- launched from San Francisco a year prior -- arrived in Brisbane, Australia after autonomously completing a 9,000-mile trans-Pacific crossing. It proved its durability again when one of the NOAA's Wave Gliders traveled right through the center of Hurricane Sandy in October. But with the release of its latest iteration of Wave Glider this week at the Navy's Sea-Air-Space expo near Washington, D.C., Liquid Robotics has more or less completed a transition from robot manufacturer to one of the world's more interesting big data companies.

????Why? Because the Wave Glider's trip across the Pacific was little more than a warm-up lap. Liquid Robotics has previously sold and leased its robotic sensing platforms to the U.S. Navy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, but for most applications -- oil and gas exploration, tropical storm tracking and prediction, fisheries management, maritime threat interdiction -- data, rather than a robot, is what the customer really wants. Wave Glider can provide data by the terabyte. But the brand new Wave Glider SV3 processes data by the terabyte and networks with other Wave Gliders in its vicinity, basically creating an information-rich cloud stretching across the high seas.

????Key to this is a proprietary cloud-based operating system called Regulus (designed for Liquid Robotics by Java creator James Gosling) that allows the SV3 to exhibit a fairly dazzling degree of autonomy while also maintaining an open source component that allows for rapid deployment of new sensor payloads and software packages as well as rapidly swappable software and hardware to run them. Sensor payloads can include virtually anything that fits in the SV3's seven modular payload units: atmospheric and oceanographic sensors applicable to ocean and climate science, video cameras and acoustic sensors useful for national security and marine environment protection purposes, or instruments for mapping and evaluating geography on the seafloor and below. And thanks to the cloud-based software architecture, some SV3s could carry all of these sensors and more while offloading some of the data processing to another nearby Wave Glider serving as a central data hub.