 |
Could Robot Fish Lead Gulf Fish To Safety?
A robotic fish that is able to lead schools of real fish is under development by Maurizio Porfiri, an assistant professor at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University.
(Robot fish is a true leader)
How could a robot fish possibly act in a way to lead flesh-and-blood fish schools? It turns out that leader fish have definable characteristics:
Dr. Porfiri chose to start with the bait fish swimming in his tanks because their information-sharing is particularly rich: They make their decision on whether to school based upon what they see and the flow that they feel, which can be studied using fluid dynamics. Fish leaders, according to biologists’ published literature and Dr. Porfiri’s observations, beat their tails faster, mill about and accelerate to gain attention, gather a school and lead it.Using a shallow, donut-shaped tank and cameras, the NYU-Poly team began a mathematical journey into fish schooling in one-dimensional environments. They recently reported their results from this study in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. Meanwhile, they built silent, remotely controlled, fish-like robotic swimmers that fit in the palm of a hand. These first robots can “swim” along a plane; the next step is to create robots that can dive and surface.
To engage live shoal mates, Dr. Porfiri wanted to give the robot other fish qualities. Foremost, it would have to swim silently, and its locomotion would have to closely match that of live fish. To achieve these goals, he employed ionic polymers that swell and shrink in response to electrical stimulation from a battery, propelling the robot.
Science fiction fans have been thinking about robotic fish for quite a while. In his 2002 story Slow Life, science fiction author Michael Swanwick writes about robot fish who help explore distant worlds:
The Mitsubishi turbot wriggled, as if alive. With one fluid motion, it surged forward, plunged, and was gone. Lizzie switched over to the fishcam.Black liquid flashed past the turbot’s infrared eyes.
Straight away from the shore it swam, seeing nothing but flecks of paraffin, ice, and other suspended particulates...
(Read more about the Mitsubishi turbofish)
Although Dr. Porfiri's work is still in the research stage, it's not too early to hope that one day robotic fish could lead their flesh-and-blood brothers to safety in the event of an environmental catastrophe like the one unfolding in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico today.
Read more robot fish tales:
-
- Robotic Fish From China
- Robofish Autonomous Fish-bot At London Acquarium
- Robot Turtle Madeline Flipper Science
- Robotic Carps Swims Realistically In London
- RoboSalmon Are Descended From SHARCs
- Liquid Lakes On Titan Ready For Robofish
- Antarctic ENDURANCE Robot Helps NASA Explore Europa
- Robofish Swim Autonomously And Communicate Wirelessly
- Tai-robot-kun Robot Sea Bream
- Robotic Fish To Detect Pollution
- Robot AquaPenguins Soar Underwater
- MIT Robofish Now More Fishy
- Coelacanth Robot Discovered In Japan
- Little Robotic Fish Has Solid-Polymer Fuel Cell
From Polytechnic Institute of New York University press release.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 6/3/2010)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 2 )
Related News Stories - (" Robotics ")
Liquid Metal Shape-Changing 'Soft Robotics'
'A mimetic poly-alloy... 'What the hell does that mean?'' John Cameron, 1991.
Walmart’s Autonomous Robot Bees
Are you allergic to autonomous robot bees?
Soft Robotics - Now With 3D Printed Sensors!
'A series of chemelectric afferent nerve-analogues, which permitted it to gauge to an ounce the amount of pressure necessary to snap a bone...' - Roger Zelazny, 1966.
Scaly Yet Soft Robotic Snake
Love those robotic sneks.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Current News
IBM's Grain Of Sand Computer
'Our ancestors... thought to make the very sand beneath their feet intelligent...'
Liquid Metal Shape-Changing 'Soft Robotics'
'A mimetic poly-alloy... 'What the hell does that mean?''
The Hammock Caravan And Italo Calvino's Octavia
'Now I will tell you how Octavia, the spider-web city, is made.'
Super-Resolution Microscopy Provides '4D' Views
View the magnified interior of living cells.
Have I Seen The Tesla Roadster Story Before?
'Only it wasn't a vessel. It was an automobile...'
Watch 'Do You Trust This Computer' For Free Today
Thanks for making this available, Elon.
Self-Driving Car Ticketed
This just missed making my day.
Elon Musk Tweets Versions Of Clarke's Operation Cleanup
'Fortunately, the old orbital forts were superbly equipped for this task.'
Burner Generates Temporary Phone Numbers
'Interesting phone system he's got, by the way...'
Walmart’s Autonomous Robot Bees
Everyone loves bees.
EA Created AI That Taught Itself To Play Battlefield
Harmless fun for computer scientists.
Is Teleportation A Death Sentence?
'A long trail of dead, he thought, left across the stars...'
New Brain Scanner Lets You Move Around
'In Bob Arctor's living room his thousand dollar custom-quality cephscope crafted by Altec...'
Can An Entire Brain Be Simulated In A Computer?
'The miles of relays and photocells had given way to the spongy globe of platinum iridium about the size of the human brain.'
Physicists Try To Turn Light Into Matter
If E=mc squared, then... m=E/c squared!
Save Your Brain's Connectome, Upload Yourself Elsewhere
'You've got remote storage. How regular is the update?'
