Allison interviews Madeline Pearce from Komatsu about their prototype of an all-electric underwater dredge that is remote-controlled.
Komatsu is a global manufacturer of heavy equipment, founded in 1921. Their electric dredge is designed to remove debris from the beds of rivers and the base of dams to repair ecosystems or prepare for natural disasters. The prototype dredge has a tall mast that sticks above the water surface, allowing it to transmit and receive signals from the remote control.
The dredge has a battery capacity of 450 kWh which allows it to operate continuously for 4 hours. It weighs 30,000 kg and can operate up to 7 meters below the water surface, currently limited by the mast height. A later version of the dredge will have a tether instead of a mast, allowing it to operate up to 50 meters underwater.
Learn more at https://komatsu.com/
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Transcript of Interview:
Allison: We are possibly interviewing someone about the, well we’re definitely interviewing them, but we’re interviewing them about possibly the largest piece of equipment I’ve seen here. We are looking at a giant underwater remote-controlled construction equipment, piece of equipment. And I’m here with Madeline Pearce who’s going to tell us a little bit about it. So what was the problem that this was designed to solve?
Madeline Pearce: So this helps with underwater dredging.
Allison: What do we dredge for?
Madeline Pearce: For just removing material from the river.
Allison: Yeah, but I think there’s something, it’s a climate problem, or helping with it.
Madeline Pearce: So you can help restore ecosystems or help prepare for natural disasters.
Allison: Oh, oh, okay. Alright. So what we’re looking at, it looks like it should be, well actually it looks like one of my grandson’s little construction equipment, but this thing is massive. It’s what is it, like 35, 40, 30 feet long? And I see a pole sticking up out of it. What’s the pole for?
Madeline Pearce: So the pole is for GPS. It helps communicate with the teleremote controller.
Allison: Oh, okay, so we’ve got somebody with a little remote control, a little joystick that’s driving all of this, right? And so that must limit the depth you can get to with this.
Madeline Pearce: Yeah, so this can be operated up to seven meters underwater.
Allison: That’s still pretty big. And if you’re doing a river, that’s probably, well I guess there’s big rivers we should talk about, but yeah. Now this isn’t the first one of these Komatsus made?
Madeline Pearce: No, so there was a diesel mechanical version that has been made since the 70s, and it had a snorkel to allow for air to get to the engine.
Allison: So that limits it even more on depth, right?
Madeline Pearce: Yeah, and eventually we want this to get to 50 meters.
Allison: Oh wow, now how would you do that over what you’re doing today?
Madeline Pearce: They want to remove the GPS mast so it’ll be tethered with a buoy at the top above the water to help communicate with the controller.
Allison: Wow, and one of the first questions we’ve asked when we got in here was, how did they get this into CES? I’m guessing this weighs a couple of pounds too. Do you have any idea how much it weighs?
Madeline Pearce: It weighs 30,000 kilograms.
Allison: Holy cow. This thing is really impressive. Well, I love the idea of this. This is all electric then, right?
Madeline Pearce: Yes, completely electric. I forgot to mention that.
Allison: So it’s every little girl’s dream to be able to drive a piece of construction equipment underwater. I think this is really cool. Thank you for joining us.
Madeline Pearce: Thank you.
Allison: Thank you.