Can you control a submarine with a game controller?

On Sunday, June 18, 2023, The submarine Titan, which made a trip to the Titanic shipwrecklost in the ocean with five people inside. Later information revealed that the submarine had suffered a severe catastrophic explosion due to pressure imbalance.

But there was another detail about the submarine that was on the agenda. This life-bearing submarine, which dives thousands of meters deep into the ocean, is the submarine that Logitech launched in 2010. with F710 controller was being controlled. But controlling a submarine with a game controller is actually not such a strange thing.

Game controllers are used in many places, including advanced weapons of the US military:

• The USS Ponce is the ship where the laser gun, which we will talk about shortly, will be placed.

The task of a player control is more control and comfort in the game for a standard user. The same goes for any company or institution that develops a weapon, builds a machine, or wants to have a control mechanism in a virtual environment. Of course, the environment here is not a game.

We have encountered many examples of usage areas where game controllers are used and the world seems strange. In December 2014, the United States boarded an amphibious ship in the Persian Gulf. laser gun announced that he would.

Even this weapon, which actually sent out a death ray, was controlled by an object with which today’s children are very familiar: an undisclosed model. a controller that resembles a game controller. Moreover, the US navy announced this.

Another example comes from the US Navy. In the image above, which includes the US army drone operator, specially developed for gamers for flight simulators It has a HOTAS system. In other words, not only joysticks, but also many other vehicles produced for entertainment purposes can be used in different areas.

Let’s go back to the USA, to 2014. What you see above is a vehicle made by Boeing for the US military and has a huge laser on it. Its mission is to destroy drones and other small flying objects in mid-air.

What about this vehicle? critical weapon that will protect life What do you think was checked? A laptop and a Xbox controller. Of course, it is unknown whether the components inside this controller have been changed.

Want a much larger sample?

The USS Colorado submarine you see above belongs to the U.S. military, it’s actually the one you see below. with Xbox controller it is checked like this:

Of course not the submarine itself, some systems and especially periscopes being checked.

Another example is from a familiar name:

Yusuf Karlı, who helped us share quantum technology with you before and currently continues his doctoral studies on quantum optics and photonics at the University of Innsbruck, also had something to say about the selected controllers.

Karlı shared on Twitter. Quantum dots worth more than 300 thousand euros. He shared that they controlled it with a PlayStation 4 controller.

Well, we thought we’d get some more details from him:

Why not use a custom made handle and why PlayStation 4 handle?

“Actually, the controller is used to control a computer software. Instead of controlling this computer software with mouse or keyboard keys, control with a PS4 controller feels more natural.

PS4 handle, I guess because of its prevalence One of the easiest controllers to program And if it breaks down or becomes unusable, it won’t take long to find a new one.”

Prof. Dr. Karlı emphasized that controllers are widely used in scientific studies and that controllers are the simplest and most efficient options for equipment that needs to be remotely controlled.

“While there are controllers that can take minutes to program, No need to rediscover America. Of course, our studies do not have risky aspects that can directly affect human life, such as going down to the bottom of the ocean with a submarine.”

Of course, it’s not that there are negative situations from time to time…

“The controller we use can control the positioners wired and wirelessly. When we first used the system, we liked that it was wireless and we used it that way. until we experience an event that we regret this choice.

I said that quantum dots are nanometer-sized structures. If you think that the hair is 20-50 micrometers thick, we can say that quantum dots are thousands of times smaller structures. Sometimes we spend weeks or months trying to find a quantum dot on a sample 1.5 meters deep inside a giant tank.

We started our experiments with a quantum dot we found after weeks of struggling. While everything was going well, one day, while trying to reach a screwdriver on the far side of the table, my arm hit the controller.

It was as if time had slowed down, slowly falling under the control of gravity, and there was nothing I could do.

The controller analog keys were dropped facing the ground, and unfortunately the controller analog keys were programmed to quickly move the sample in the XY plane horizontally. When I pick up the controller I realized that the quantum dot we’ve been struggling with for weeks is no longer there.

Since then, we’ve been using the controller as wired, and when we’re done, we unplug it.”

Let’s mention that Karlı managed to be on the cover of ACS Nano Letters magazine with his work in 2022, in which he made the first successful experimental demonstration of a theory called SUPER Method, which changed what we know with quantum mechanics.

We also thank him for this information he has given us.

Ready-made arms can also be a reference:

Ready-made controllers are not always used in weapon systems. However, these controllers will be used in systems and It can also be a reference for specially developed controllers.

The controller of the US Army’s M-SHORAD air defense system, which you can see above, is very similar to the layout of the Xbox controller (of course the N64). The vehicle controlled by this controller looks like this:

But why don’t even armies develop their own controller and apply to these arms?

The answer to this question may not be as complicated as you think. It may even surprise you a little. However, one should not think of everything too complicated. Without further ado, Take advantage of using a game controller that is already in production. We can list as follows:

• There is a generation that grew up with games and controllers, their hands are prone to these controllers. No extra training or hand habits are required.
• The cost is too low to count.
• It eliminates the bureaucracy required when developing a new system, especially in armies.
• The number of them is very easy to find, and in case of a problem, even the smallest part can be replaced thanks to plenty of spare parts.
• These controllers have been developed for the comfort of millions, and plenty of R&D has already been done. Why do it in the first place?
• It is now a universal design known to the whole world. There’s no need for a controller schema that didn’t exist in the first place.
• These controllers mostly don’t break even after thousands of hours of gaming sessions. Even with regular replacement, many risks are eliminated.
• The software for the controllers is now even built into all computers. No need to write new software from scratch.