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Noting the satire marker, I’ll just say for completeness: Starlink consumes 100W continuously to operate its phased array beam and the computation requires to drive it. That’s too much power for a sail drone.



It's really not. Assuming your power source has the required amperage, short, infrequent bursts are much more effective than continuous operation. In embedded systems, it's all about duty cycle, and by that metric, Starlink blows the Thales modem out of the water.

The Thales VesseLink modem they used consumes 65W nominal/120W maximum. It offers a connection speed of a couple hundred kbps, so sending up a video file of a fixed size will require it to be on for quite a while - Assuming 200 kbps average, and a 360 MB video, that's 4 hours of uploading or 260 Watt-hours. Also, it's 12x9x2", and weighs 7.5 lbs; this is a boat not a hobby quadcopter. 260 Watt-hours is a lot; that's like 3 laptop batteries, but that's still smaller than the modem itself.

Starlink does consume 100W, but offers a connection speed of about 200 Mbps. The 360 MB video upload could complete in 14.4 seconds, which consumes 100 W * 14.4 seconds / 3600 seconds/hour = 0.4 Watt-hours. It is significantly larger, and it would probably have a harder time handling rough seas (not to mention saltwater intrusion), but that's a lot less power.

Whichever modem you're using, you'd want to turn it on infrequently.

Edit: The Saildrone product brief is here:

https://assets.website-files.com/5beaf972d32c0c1ce1fa1863/61...

It describes a 23' or 7m boat. The 33'/10m larger version has 300W continuous sensor power/2kW peak available from the solar panels, which appear to be of a comparable size to those on the Saildrone.


Oh, on second thought this boat is a beast. It has a 75 HP diesel engine in it, along with the solar panels. It can surely crank out 100W continuously forever. Sadly, Starlink is not for mobile use.


Starlink will be available for marine uses: https://www.pcmag.com/news/spacex-preps-ruggedized-starlink-...

It will be a life-changing event for maritime robotics, assuming they don't get too greedy.


This particular saildrone seems to be a larger model: 72' long.


I always thought /s was 'sarcastic'. And, oh so very often, very not needed.


Just harvest the hurrican’s windpower /s


Can't we use these giant fans to blow the hurricane away?

/s because I am serious


Simply blow against the wind with equal force and hurricane will become neutralized.

/super cereal




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