Engineers from Northwestern Polytechnical University and Xian Tianhe Maritime Technologies set a world record by deploying a swarm of 116 autonomous underwater vehicles. The achievement was officially verified by Guinness World Records representatives following tests conducted on August 29 in a 50 by 20 meter pool.
The drones operated autonomously for 34 minutes, covering a total distance of 500 meters. Each unit navigated and adjusted its trajectory in real time without human intervention, maintaining formation while accounting for environmental factors like currents. The swarm relied on local data processing rather than satellite navigation.
The TH-618 drone model used in the test measures 61.5 cm in length and 20 cm in width, with a mass of 5.14 kg. These devices feature machine vision cameras for navigation and can operate for over eight hours on a single battery charge, with a maximum range of 30 km from the launch point.
This project aims to advance large-scale coordination for underwater systems. Potential applications for such swarms include maritime monitoring, underwater mapping, and search operations, where the simultaneous deployment of numerous small, autonomous units is required to perform complex tasks efficiently.
