Darpa Wants an Underwater GPS System for Seafaring Robots

We would be lost without GPS. The Global Positioning System constellation of satellites started life as a military project, but now enables turn-by-turn directions in the palm of your hand, and confidence that it's almost impossible to get lost as long as you can see the sky. GPS doesn't penetrate the briny deep, so Darpa, the Pentagon's research arm, wants a system that will keep the robots plumbing the oceans on the map, and it's asking for proposals from industry. The proposed solution also wins this week's award for best military acronym: "Posyndon," for Positioning System for Deep Ocean Navigation. "What they are trying to do here is revolutionize underwater navigation in a way that is similar for what GPS did for above water," says Neil Adams, director of defense systems at Draper, the non-profit R&D lab that's working on an answer.