New Robot Fish Swims Like the Real Thing

Robot fish could one day be enlisted for undercover science missions.

A soft-bodied robot that looks and swims like a fish was unveiled by researchers at MIT this week; they say something like it might be able to infiltrate schools of real fish and gather data about their behavior.

The autonomous robot swishes side-to-side underwater as different parts of its body are inflated and deflated with a fluid stored as a gas onboard, the creators explained in a video. The result is a flexible robofish can execute escape maneuvers just as quickly as a real fish can — turning its body in a mere 100 milliseconds.

For years roboticists have been working on durable, flexible bots that mimic other squishy creatures, such as earthwormlike robots that could survive blows from a hammer and octopus-inspired bots that could squeeze into small places for exploration or search-and-rescue operations.

The newly revealed robot belongs to a long line of fish-inspired creations, including RoboTuna, an underwater automaton with 2,843 parts controlled by six motors that came out of MIT in 1994.

livescience

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OK I guess it could work for rescue operations but the entire time I was watching the video all I could think about is "I cant wait till they can make a good lure". If they can get it to work as they plan with a water pump they may just have an angler nitch to fill. Yeah they have to make it smaller as well.

Cute. But seriously, a really bad swimmer. Maybe they should have gone for a more cetacean mode.

I'm partial to flying things though.

reply to post by Phage


Now I want to see a video of a robot bird pluck a robot fish out of the water to feed to its robot chicks.


All hail robot chicken. Sorry couldn't help it.

Ornithopters or bust.

ETA: DAMNIT PHAGE!!!

reply to post by DeadSeraph

What?

But to respond to a previous request, robots doing this would be awesome.
www.youtube.com...

Phage
reply to post by DeadSeraph

 

What?

But to respond to a previous request, robots doing this would be awesome.
www.youtube.com...

Until the military starts using them and you're the fish. Then it would suck.

I've been on ATS too long. My first thought was oh god, now they will be spying on us with fish.

Seriously though, I need to replace the fish in my aquarium with these since they don't mess up their own environment and need constant attention.

What I'm really waiting for is affordable robots for home that will do menial chores reliably.

I guess we'll need a replacement after we have killed everything in the ocean. That's the future, a radioactive black sea full of robot fish.