All Ships suffer from fouling: the build-up below the waterline of shellfish, seaweeds and other organisms.
所有船只都會遭遇污垢:堆積在水線以下的甲殼類動物、海藻以及其他生物體。
This causes drag, which slows the affected craft and increases its fuel consumption.
這會造成阻力,降低了受影響船只的速度,增加了其耗油量。
Regular hull cleaning thus makes a considerable difference to the profitability of shipping.
因此,定期的船體表面清洗對航運的盈利能力有相當大的影響。
It also results in a useful reduction in the amount of planet-warming carbon dioxide emitted by the world's merchant shipping--
它還有效地減少了全球商船所排放的導致全球變暖的二氧化碳總量——
an industry that many environmentalists think is notoriously dirty and which could therefore do with burnishing its green credentials.
許多環保人士認為該行業是出了名的骯臟,該行業因此可以擦亮它的綠色證書了。
Roar Adland, a shipping economist at the Norwegian School of Economics, in Bergen,
卑爾根市挪威經濟學院的海運經濟學家Roar Adland表示,
says that a midsized oil tanker's fuel consumption (and also, consequently, its emission of carbon dioxide)
中型油輪的耗油量(同時,也會釋放出二氧化碳)
drops by around 9% after its hull is cleaned at sea--something that happens, on average, once every six or seven months.
會在進行海面船體表面清洗后下降約9%——這種情況平均每六、七個月發生一次。
If the cleaning is done in a dry dock, which allows the process to be more thorough, that figure can be as much as17%.
如果是在干船塢進行清洗工作,那么這個過程會更加全面,該數字可達到17%。
At the moment, cleaning at sea is done by teams of divers.
目前,海上清潔工作是由潛水隊員團隊完成。
In recent years, robots have sometimes been added to underwater cleaning crews, and have proved effective.
近些年,機器人有時會加入水下清潔團隊,而且效果很好。

Jotun, a Norwegian coatings company, and Semcon, a Swedish engineering firm, propose, however, to go one step further.
但挪威涂料公司佐敦漆以及瑞典工程公司Semcon提議更進一步。
They want to replace the divers completely with a machine. That machine, moreover, would not merely defoul a ship's hull, but stop it fouling up in the first place.
他們希望用機器完全替代潛水員。此外,這臺機器不僅能夠清理船只的船體,還能在一開始就防止船體污垢。
HullSkater, as the consortium dub their invention, is a 200kg hull-crawling robot.
他們將自己的發明稱為HullSkater,這是一個200公斤重的船體爬行機器人。
It will reside permanently on-board ship, ready to be launched whenever the vessel is stationary--
它將永久駐留在船上,在船只停航時,隨時準備啟動——
for example, when it is waiting in the roads outside a port for a berth to unload and load. To deploy the robot, it is first lowered overboard by a crane.
例如,當它在港口外等待泊位裝卸貨物時。要部署這個機器人,首先要用起重機將其吊到船外。
Its four magnetic wheels, each of which is fitted with a motor, then clamp it to the hull and it can start trundling around.
它的四個磁鐵輪子上都裝有一個發動機,然后將它固定在船體上,它就可以慢慢移動了。
After this, the ship's crew need do nothing. Wherever the vessel happens to be on the planet,
之后,船員什么都不需要做。無論船只在地球上的哪個地方,
the robot is piloted remotely by an operator on land, who may be half a world away, via a 4G phone connection.
該機器人都能由陸地上的一名操作人員操控,相隔半個地球之遠的操作員也能通過4G手機連接進行遠程操作。
Inspecting and cleaning a hull takes HullSkater between two and eight hours, depending on the size and design of the ship.
檢查和清理船體需要花費HullSkater兩到八小時的時間,這取決于船只的大小和設計。
The robot is fitted with special brushes that can probe the nooks and crannies of naval architecture--
這個機器人裝有特殊的刷子,可以探測船只的各個角落和縫隙——
the areas around propellers, for example--and its four cameras provide its operators with a detailed view of what is going on,
比如,螺旋槳周圍的區域——并且其四個相機為操作人員提供了關于其工作進程的詳細視角,
and also help to keep track of whereabouts on the hull the machine is.
同時也有助于追蹤該機器人在船體上的位置。
The idea is to keep the hull permanently clean, by regularly removing from it the layers or slime-producing bacteria that are the first stage of the fouling process.
其目的是為了保持船體永久清潔,并通過定期清理表層或污垢細菌的方式來實現,這些是防污流程的第一階段。
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