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One of the details that have attracted the attention of journalists and the public with respect to the story of the submarine lost in the Atlantic Ocean with five people on board since Sunday 18 June is the device with which it is piloted, i.e. a controller of those used to play video games. It might seem strange that such a sophisticated vehicle is piloted with such a simple tool, which is commonly found in electronics stores for a few tens of euros: in reality, video game controllers are used for a long time in various countries to maneuver even very sophisticated vehicles and devices, including military ones.
Vice he noticed that the instrument used to drive the Titan submarine is a slightly modified version of a G-F710 controller from Logitech, which began producing this model in 2011. In a recent service television of CBS News the same CEO of OceanGate, the US company that produced the submarine, said that the vehicle was piloted with a video game controller. The controller, which works via bluetooth, was also shown in a promotional video that is circulating on social networks these days.
the titan submarine is controlled by Bluetooth with an old video game controller pic.twitter.com/AN73reFA19
— Richard B. Long (@intell911) June 20, 2023
Controllers such as those of the Xbox 360 have been used for at least ten years by the United States Army and Navy, which, among other things, use them both to pilot robot employed for the disposal of explosive ordnance, both to operate the turret, i.e. the structure in the upper part of the submarines.
Video game controllers – or modified versions thereof – are used Also by the British and Israeli armies to maneuver a particular remotely piloted military vehicle and a type of tank, respectively. To operate the United States Army’s short-range air defense system (M-SHORAD) you are using a controller that resembles the one for the Nintendo 64.
The controller of US Army’s M-SHORAD / The fire controller of Challenger 2 pic.twitter.com/J60VKTTE4B
— Sovinskiy (@_Sovinskiy) February 16, 2023
The main reasons why armies use instruments of this type to pilot even very sophisticated vehicles are that they are inexpensive, but above all that the recruits know them very well: they know how they are made and they know the logic with which they work, which makes it more easy to learn to pilot military vehicles from a distance. Xbox is also a console produced by Microsoft, which makes the controllers easily compatible with various operating systems, including Windows, notes the Washington Post.
The dive of the submarine Titan had been organized by OceanGate to explore the wreck of the Titanic, the famous ocean liner that sank in April 1912. The expedition had left Canada on the support ship Polar Prince and the submarine had begun its descent into the ocean in the early hours of Sunday. At the moment we do not know the reasons why the Titan broke off contact with the Polar Prince after just under two hours. Both second Vice which according to the Washington Post however it seems unlikely that it could have depended on a single factor or only on a specific component of the vehicle, such as the device used to drive it.
– Read also: There had long been doubts and skepticism about the company of the missing submarine