M.I.T.'s robo-fish prototypes cut through the water at close to one body length per second—fast for a robotic fish, but no match for the genuine article, which can swim as fast as 10 times their body length per second, according to the researchers.
The robo-fish project is an extension of Valdivia y Alvarado's doctoral thesis work at M.I.T., which sought to create "a methodology for building mobile robots by exploiting the natural vibration of compliant bodies," he says. When people build robots, whether it is a humanoid, a quadruped or a fish, they tend to create very complex mechanisms, and this complexity often works against them by creating multiple points of potential failure, Valdivia y Alvarado says. Because the robo-fish that he and Youcef-Toumi have created is made from a single piece of polymer, it is easier to make watertight than previous generations of robotic fish.
Valdivia y Alvarado and Youcef-Toumi benefited from a wealth of data produced by previous robotic fish research. In 1994 M.I.T. ocean engineers demonstrated Robo-tuna, a 1.2-meter-long robotic fish with 2,843 parts controlled by six motors. Valdivia y Alvarado's robo-fish are powered by a single motor and are made of fewer than 10 parts, including the body and the wiring. Other robotic fish experiments have been conducted by the University of Essex in England, the California Institute of Technology and several others.
Whereas Robo-tuna and several of those that followed in its wake were built to help researchers study fluid dynamics and how fish swim, Valdivia y Alvarado hopes his new generation of robo-fish will lead to autonomous underwater devices that can perform a number of jobs, such as inspecting submerged vessels and oil and gas pipes, patrolling waterways, and detecting environmental pollutants. His initial prototypes are wired to an external power source, but the future will include battery-powered models.
And basic fish are just the first step. By December, Valdivia y Alvarado and Youcef-Toumi plan to have built a prototype manta ray and salamander, both of which require more complex movements than the original robo-fish.
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9 Comments
Add CommentI think you meant "silicone" not "silicon". A common and, I believe, unforgivable error for a science magazine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou might be thinking wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe advances will come when we get away from blind programmed motion, and equip these fish with pressure sensors on their skin, completing a feedback loop that alters the expansion and contraction of the "muscle" in that area, to even out the pressure & drag smoothly along the body, and ramp it up near the tail.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSilicon is very hard and brittle and is used to make microprocessors and other electronic devices. Silicone is a polymer and can be very flexible or hard depending on the amount of cross-linking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease visit http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17237&ch=infotech&a=f for an introduction to flexible silicon.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisForgot about this case. However, the 'fish' in question uses silicone, not silicon. Please visit http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/robo-fish-0824.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is neat
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMore importantly, do you bread 'em after you fillet them? What's the cooking time?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo they go well with silicon chips on the side?
I wonder if there had been any study's on the effects of releasing this amount of fish in to the food chain...?
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