MAROKO133 Breaking ai: German engineers test silent propellers to save marine life without

📌 MAROKO133 Eksklusif ai: German engineers test silent propellers to save marine l

German researchers are launching a new project to tackle one of the ocean’s loudest problems. Ship propellers create massive noise that disrupts marine life.

This interference breaks the communication, feeding, and mating patterns of marine mammals.

Now, a team at HAW Kiel is developing new propeller designs to silence the seas.

The state of Schleswig-Holstein is fueling this effort with a €390,000 grant. The project, named MinKav, officially kicked off on January 1, 2026.

Researchers aim to cut underwater noise without losing vessel efficiency or speed. This balance is critical for the future of global shipping.

Science of cavitation

Propeller noise starts with a physical phenomenon called cavitation. Pressure drops sharply on the suction side of a spinning blade. This causes water to vaporize and form tiny bubbles.

When pressure rises again, these bubbles collapse with violent force. This process creates loud, impulsive sounds that travel for miles.

Leonie Föhring is leading the doctoral research at HAW Kiel’s Institute for Shipbuilding and Maritime Technology.

She uses a cavitation tunnel, high-speed cameras, and underwater microphones to study these bubbles. Her goal is to make the invisible visible and the silent audible.

“The loud impulse occurs at the moment the bubble collapses. Its volume depends on how rapidly the process takes place,” Föhring explains.

“We now want to find out whether it’s even possible to slow this collapse down—and how propellers would need to be designed to achieve that.”

Modern commercial ships currently use custom-designed propellers.

However, underwater noise has rarely been a priority for engineers. Prof. Jörn Kröger, the project lead, believes this must change to meet upcoming environmental limits.

“We need practical methods that allow noise reduction to be routinely integrated into propeller design,” Kröger notes.

He wants to ensure these changes do not cause “significant losses in efficiency or speed.”

Current solutions often require ships to slow down to remain quiet. This tradeoff leads to longer travel times and higher costs for shipping companies.

Föhring and Kröger are using computer flow simulations to find a better way.

They want to protect marine species while maintaining energy efficiency for climate protection.

Fixing the global fleet

The project includes expertise from JASCO-ShipConsult, a specialist in ship acoustics.

Shipbuilding engineer Dr. Dietrich Wittekind sees a major gap in current maritime research.

He notes that international teams have studied low-frequency noise for 20 years.

“Despite many measurements, we still lack a fundamental understanding of the mechanism responsible for the high noise levels, and therefore the basis for making ships quieter,” Wittekind says.

“This is precisely where MinKav begins: It is the first project to systematically analyze the root causes and develop concrete solutions for significant noise reduction through propeller measures.”

The findings could apply to both new builds and existing vessels.

This offers a real chance to reduce noise pollution across the world’s oceans. The MinKav project will run through December 31, 2028.

Its success could redefine how the world’s fleet moves through the water.

🔗 Sumber: interestingengineering.com

📌 MAROKO133 Hot ai: SpaceX Angling for Military Contract to Produce Drone Swarms E

In 2017, Elon Musk signed an open letter calling on the United Nations to ban the development of autonomous weapons.

“We do not have long to act,” the letter read. “Once this Pandora’s box is opened, it will be hard to close.”

In 2018, he signed a pledge by the Future of Life Institute, agreeing that “the decision to take a human life should never be delegated to a machine” and that “we will neither participate in nor support the development, manufacture, trade, or use of lethal autonomous weapons.”

But the draw of big government contracts to do exactly what he opposed back then has seemingly become too lucrative to remain ethically consistent. As Bloomberg reports, SpaceX and xAI, the latter of which was recently folded into the former, are now competing in a Pentagon contest to produce voice-controlled, autonomous drone swarming tech.

Inside sources told Bloomberg that the Pentagon’s contest has a $100 million prize and was launched last month. The goal is to develop a drone swarm that can respond to voice commands simultaneously.

However, considering the current state of large language models, which continue to be plagued by hallucinations, it’s no wonder experts have voiced concerns about using generative AI to command lethal drones.

While coordinated movement of drones is already well-established tech, having a whole network of drones move autonomously at once in pursuit of a target has proven extremely difficult on the battlefield, per Bloomberg‘s sources.

The effort is part of the Trump administration’s Defense Autonomous Warfare Group (DAWG), and the Defense Innovation Unit, the Pentagon’s arm dedicated to tapping Silicon Valley for cutting-edge tech.

The goal is to progressively develop the concept from software to real-life testing across five separate phases.

According to Bloomberg‘s sources, the drones won’t just be used for reconnaissance, implying they will also serve offensive purposes. The human-machine interaction “will directly impact the lethality and effectiveness of these systems.”

That’s a considerable departure for SpaceX, which has previously inked government contracts for access to space and military satellites, but not weapons systems.

Musk’s xAI signed a $200 million contract with the US military for the use of its Grok chatbot and has been looking to hire engineers with security clearance.

The news comes ahead of a rumored SpaceX IPO at a record-crushing valuation of $1.25 trillion. How investors will react to Musk reversing his stance on the use of autonomous weapons systems remains to be seen.

Musk claimed earlier this month that SpaceX would “form the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world’s foremost real-time information and free speech platform,” following the company’s merger with xAI.

The CEO, however, made no mention of his companies’ efforts to develop drone swarms.

More on xAI: Cofounders Fleeing Elon Musk’s xAI

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🔗 Sumber: futurism.com