機(jī)器人類外文文獻(xiàn)翻譯穿越深淵的機(jī)器人中英文翻譯@外文翻譯

英文原文 The Abyss Transit System - James Cameron commissions the making of robots for a return to the Titanic By Gary Stix At the beginning of the movie that made Leonardo DiCaprio a megastar, a camera-toting unmanned robot ventured into a cavernous hole in the wreck that sits on the bottom of the Atlantic, 12,640 feet from the surface. The 500-pound vehicle, christened Snoop Dog, could move only about 30 feet along a lower deck, ha mpered by its bulky two-inch-diameter tether hitched to a submarine that waited above. The amount of thrust needed to move its chunky frame stirred up a thick cloud. “The vehicle very quickly silted out the entire place and made imaging impossible,” director James Cameron recalls. But the eerie vista revealed by Snoop Dog on that 1995 expedition made Cameron hunger for more. He vowed to return one day with technology that could negotiate anyplace within the Titanics interior. In the past six months two documentariesone for IMAX movie theaters called Ghosts of the Abyss, the other, Expedition: Bismarck, for the DiscoveryChanneldemonstrated the fruits of a three-year effort that Cameron financed with $1.8 million of his own money to make this vision materialize. The payoff was two 70-pound robots, named after Blues Brothers Jake and Elwood, that had the full run of two of the worlds most famous wrecks, the Titanic and the Bismarck, which they visited on separate expeditions. The person who took Jake and Elwood from dream to robot is Mike Cameron, Jamess brother, an aerospace engineer who once designed missiles and who also possesses a diverse background as a helicopter pilot, stunt photographer and stuntman. (Remember the corpse in the movie The Abyss, from whose mouth a crab emerges?) Giving the remotely operated vehicles freedom of movement required that they be much smaller than Snoop Dog and that the tethers width be tapered dramatically so as not to catch on vertical ship beams. Mike Cameron took inspiration from the wire-guided torpedoes used by the military that can travel for many miles. His team created vehicles operable to more than 20,000 feet (enough to reach as much as 85 percent of the ocean floor). The dimensions of the front of the robot are 16 inches high by 17 inches across, small enough to fit in a B deck window of the Titanic. The bots have an internal battery so that they do not need to be powered through a tether. Instead the tetherfifty-thousandths of an inch in diametercontains optical fibers that relay control signals from a manned submersible vehicle hovering outside and that also send video images in the other direction. The tether pays out from the robot, a design that prevents it from snagging on objects in the wreck. James Cameron thought the project would be a straightforward engineering task, not much harder than designing a new camera system. “This turned out to be a whole different order of magnitude,” he says. “There was no commercial off-the-shelf hardware that would work in the vehicles. Everything had to be built from scratch.” If the team had known this early on, he added, “we wouldnt have bothered.” Water pressure on the cable that carried the optical fibers could create microscopic bends in the data pipe, completely cutting off the control signals from the submersibles. Dark Matter in Valencia, Calif. (Mike Camerons company), had to devise a fluid-filled sheath around the fiber to displace the minuscule air pockets in the cable that could lead to the microbending. To save weight, the framesimilar to a monocoque body of a race carwas made up of small glass hollow spheres contained in an epoxy matrix. The thruster contained a large-diameter, slowly rotating blade with nozzles that diffused the propulsive flow, minimizing the churning that would otherwise disturb the caked silt. A high-resolution video camera, along with an infrared camera for navigation, was placed in the front of the craft along with three light-emitting-diode arrays for fill lighting and two quartz halogen lamps for spotlighting. The winter of 2001 marked a critical juncture. It was six months before dives to the Titanic could be safely attempted, and James had to determine whether to proceed or wait another year. “Mike was really, really negative on the idea, but I decided to go for it,” the director says. He felt he couldnt afford to wait longer and thought that a fixed deadline would focus the engineering staff at Dark Matter. Forhis part, Mike was contending with an unending series of design challenges. “It was such an overwhelming set of problems that I had very little confidence that certain parts would be solvable in the time we had,” Mike says. A few weeks before the dives commenced in the summer of 2001, the robots lithium sulfur dioxode-based batteries caught fire while being tested in a pressure tank, destroying what was to have been a third robot. Mike wanted to delay the dives, but James found a supplier of another type of lithium battery and pressed ahead. At the dive site, Jake and Elwood took starring roles with their 2,000-foot tethers, exploring for the first time in about 90 years remote parts of the ships, including the engine room, the firemens mess hall and the cabins of first-class passengerseven focusing in on a bowler hat, a brass headboard and an intact, upright glass decanter. The images lack the resolution and novel quality of the high-definition, three-dimensional IMAX images, the other major technological innovation of Ghosts of the Abyss. Jake and Elwoods discoveries, however, draw the viewers interest because of what they convey of the Titanics mystique. “You actually feel like youre out there in the wreck,” Mike says. He remembers his brother piloting the robots with the helicopter stick that had been installed in the Russian submersible from which the robots were launched. “Jim ended up being a cowboy pilot,” Mike says. “He was far more aggressive with the system than I was.” One scene in Ghosts of the Abyss reveals the tension that sometimes erupted between the brothers. James contemplates moving one of the robots through a cabin window that is still partially occluded by a shard of glass that could damage the vehicle or cut the data tether. When James declares that he is going to take Jake in, moviegoers can hear Mike pleading with his brother not to do it, ultimately relenting once the bot has negotiated the opening. The decision to install a new type of battery at the last minute came to haunt the expedition； Elwoods lithium-polymer battery ignited while in the bowels of the ship. James manipulated the remaining robot into the Titanic to perform a rescue operation by hooking a cord to the grill of the dead bot and towing it out. At the surfaceon the deck of the Russian scientific vessel the Keldysh, from which the two submarines carrying Jake and Elwood to the Titanic were launchedMike rebuilt Elwood with a backup battery. During the next dive, the robot caught fire again while it was still mounted on the submarine, endangering the crew. Finally, Mike worked for an 18-hour stretch to adapt a lead-acid gel battery used for devices onboard the mother ship into a power source for Elwood, enabling the expedition to continue. The bots, now fitted with a new, nonflammable battery that Mike designed, may find service beyond motion pictures. The U.S. Navy has funded Dark Matter to help it assess the technology for underwater recovery operations of ships or aircraft. The bots also have potential for scientific exploration of deep-sea trenches. After traveling to the Titanic and the Bismarck, the team went on to probe mid-Atlantic hydrothermal vents, discovering mollusks in a place where scientists had never encountered them before. As adventure aficionados, the brothers speculate that a descendant of Jak e and Elwood might even be toted on a mission to Europa, one of Jupiters moons, to investigate the waters that are suspected to exist below its icy shell. The Cameron siblings, who tinkered with home-built rafts and rockets as children in Ontario near Niagara Falls, hope to be around long enough to witness their robotic twins go from the bottom of the ocean to the depths of space. 中文譯文 穿越深淵的機(jī)器 -新型的機(jī)器人可在數(shù)百公尺深的水底殘骸間自由穿梭游覽 作者 斯蒂克斯 ( Gary Stix ) 曾一舉捧紅超級(jí)巨星李?yuàn)W納多狄卡皮歐的電影鐵達(dá)尼號(hào)中， 片頭是一臺(tái)無(wú)人駕駛的遙控裝置，攜帶著攝影機(jī)深入大西洋， 在 3852 公尺深的鐵達(dá)尼號(hào)殘骸里冒險(xiǎn)的畫面。 這臺(tái) 226.8 公斤重的海底載具名為嗅犬（ Snoop Dog）， 它被一條直徑達(dá)五公分的笨重繩索所牽制，由于其中一端系在上面等待的潛水艇上， 所以只能沿著底層甲板移動(dòng)約九公 尺。 為了移動(dòng)它矮胖的身軀，需要用到大量的推進(jìn)力，但是卻因此揚(yáng)起厚重的塵云。 導(dǎo)演詹姆斯 科麥?。?James Cameron）回憶道： “這臺(tái)海底載具很快就使整個(gè)地方充滿淤泥，所以根本不可能取得影像。 ” 但是，嗅犬在 1995 年這場(chǎng)探險(xiǎn)所顯示的迷人畫面，卻使科麥隆渴求得到更多發(fā)現(xiàn)。 他發(fā)誓將來(lái)有一天會(huì)重回鐵達(dá)尼號(hào)，屆時(shí)的技術(shù)將可以順利穿越這艘船內(nèi)部的任何地方。 為了實(shí)現(xiàn)這個(gè)夢(mèng)想，科麥隆自己耗資 180 萬(wàn)美元。 而就在過去六個(gè)月里， 深淵游魂（ Ghosts of the Abyss）和俾斯麥號(hào)長(zhǎng)征 （ Expedi tion:Bismarck）這兩支紀(jì)錄片展示了他努力三年的成果； 前者將于 IMAX 電影院上映，后者則于 Discovery 頻道撥出。 此次的成果是兩臺(tái) 32 公斤重的機(jī)器人， 分別以電影福祿雙霸天里的杰克（ Jake）和埃爾伍德（ Elwood）命名。 在兩次不同的探險(xiǎn)里，它們已經(jīng)可以完全自由地游覽兩艘舉世聞名的沉船： 鐵達(dá)尼號(hào)及俾斯麥號(hào)。 把杰克和埃爾伍德從夢(mèng)想化為實(shí)際的人是詹姆斯之弟麥克 科麥隆（ Mike Cameron），他是航太工程師，曾設(shè)計(jì)飛彈， 并且有各式各樣的經(jīng)歷，如直升機(jī)駕 駛員、 特技鏡頭攝影師以及特技演員等（還記得電影無(wú)底洞里嘴里爬出螃蟹的死尸嗎？）。 為了要讓遠(yuǎn)端操控的載具能夠自由移動(dòng)，其體積必須比嗅犬小很多， 且繩索寬度需大幅變細(xì)，如此機(jī)器就不用緊抓垂直的船桿。 麥克 科麥隆的靈感來(lái)自于可以航行好幾公里的軍用導(dǎo)向魚雷。 其團(tuán)隊(duì)所設(shè)計(jì)的海底載具， 就算在超過 6000 公尺（足夠到達(dá)海底 85%的地方）的深處，還是可以操作。 機(jī)器人正面的尺寸為高 40 公分寬 43 公分，已足夠小， 正適合進(jìn)入鐵達(dá)尼號(hào) B甲板的窗戶，此外它還具有內(nèi)部電池，因此不需經(jīng)由繩索控制。 而直徑 0.12 公 分的繩索包著光纖，駕駛潛水艇在外護(hù)航的操作人員， 便可透過它傳遞控制訊號(hào)，也可以將錄影的影像送回。 繩索是由機(jī)器人這端放出，這樣的設(shè)計(jì)是為了防止它被殘骸里的物品絆住而影響行動(dòng)。 詹姆斯 科麥隆原本以為這個(gè)計(jì)畫是一項(xiàng)簡(jiǎn)單的工程，不會(huì)比設(shè)計(jì)一個(gè)新的攝影系統(tǒng)更難。 他說：結(jié)果完全不是這樣。 商業(yè)現(xiàn)成的硬體根本不能用，一切都要從頭做起。 他補(bǔ)充道：如果團(tuán)隊(duì)在初期時(shí)就能夠知道這點(diǎn)，我們絕對(duì)不會(huì)自找麻煩。 攜帶光纖的纜線會(huì)因?yàn)樗畨旱年P(guān)系而在資料管里產(chǎn)生極小的彎曲， 完全切斷潛水艇的控制訊號(hào)。 位于美國(guó)加州 瓦倫西亞，由麥克 科麥隆成立的暗物質(zhì)公司，設(shè)計(jì)了填滿液體的護(hù)套圍繞著光纖， 取代了纜線里會(huì)導(dǎo)致微彎的小氣囊。 為了減輕重量， 主要骨架（類似賽車的單體結(jié)構(gòu)）是由包裹在環(huán)氧化物里的小空心玻璃球體所組成。 機(jī)器的推進(jìn)器包含了大直徑慢速轉(zhuǎn)動(dòng)的螺旋槳，而且推進(jìn)水流由噴嘴送出， 以避面劇烈攪動(dòng)擾亂了結(jié)塊的淤泥。 一臺(tái)高解析度攝影機(jī)放置在小船的前方，另外還有一臺(tái)導(dǎo)航用紅外線攝影機(jī)、 三排發(fā)光二極體負(fù)責(zé)提供充足的照明，以及兩個(gè)石英鹵素?zé)粲糜诰酃狻?2001 年冬天是一個(gè)關(guān)鍵時(shí)期。 在有把握潛入鐵達(dá)尼號(hào)之前， 詹姆斯有六個(gè)月的時(shí)間決定是否繼續(xù)進(jìn)行或者再等一年。 他說：麥克非常反對(duì)這個(gè)計(jì)畫，但我決定大膽一試。 他覺得他無(wú)法再等下去，而且固定的截止日期可以使暗物質(zhì)公司的工程人員專注于此。 對(duì)于麥克而言，他要處理設(shè)計(jì)上永無(wú)止境的挑戰(zhàn)，他表示：一連串的問題不斷襲來(lái)， 以至于我只有極小的信心能夠在有限時(shí)間內(nèi)解決掉部份問題。 2001 年夏天，在潛