Robotics is gradually becoming a more extensive field of activity. More and more robots, their “species diversity” is very large. Scientists from MIT have
decided that robots are almost ideal for exploring coral reefs. Of course, robots can be of almost any shape, but at MIT they decided to make their system look like fish.
No sooner said than done, now a robotic fish with a flexible body
explores the ocean
ecosystem around Fiji. The robot was named SoFi and it is not just a proof-of-concept, but a real device, capable of much.
It is a fairly powerful tool that can study coral reefs in all their diversity. In this case, the system can be in stand-alone mode for a long time.
The operator controls the fish, the robot can not make decisions on its own, working in fully autonomous mode. The control is carried out with the help of a game controller, the controller communicates with the device thanks to ultrasound. Batteries last for about 40 minutes of the system, which is enough for a detailed survey of certain parts of the bottom.
A robotic fish moves in much the same way as a regular one, making similar decisions. The tail of the "fish" makes about one oscillation per second, while a rather tricky system is involved. The depth at which the fish can be located without harm to itself reaches 18 meters.
Fiji was chosen by scientists because the ecosystems are unusually rich, thousands of species live here. Of course, it is being tested and the robot, which is still a new development. She, like everyone else, needs running in.
At the time of writing, the robotic fish spent about three days at work. During this time, she made six dives, with a total duration of 240 minutes. The operator, who controls the robot, swims behind the "fish" about 10 meters. In the future, management will be made, perhaps from other places. Now, since the system is debugging, it was decided not to complicate anything, but to try to control the fish from its “native” environment. By the way, SoFis doesn’t scare fish and other reef living creatures, so a robot can be used for research projects whose main purpose is to study the sea or ocean in the most realistic conditions. So far this is only a working prototype, probably, soon scientists will improve the “fish” in such a way that the operator does not have to swim with it either.
Robots have long been used to explore the seas and oceans. For example, the Japanese
launched the Wave Glider robot into the water in order to track the occurrence of a tsunami. They are quite frequent in this region. The system is equipped with a hydrophone, camera and communication module, which allows the robot to keep in touch with the satellite. Energy Wave Glider receives from wave energy and solar energy. This allows the robot to stay in the water for months, since it does not need regular fuel.
In 2015, oceanologists began to use robots to fight starfish like Acanthaster planci. They multiply very quickly, and they eat - coral polyps. For the year, one star can eat about 13 square meters of polyps. Fish that eat starfish, do not have time to destroy their population in the right quantity, because people catch fish. As a result, corals began to die en masse. In the 1960s, it was because of the Acanthaster planci that a large number of corals died in the territories of the islands of Guam and Fiji.
So, in order to carry out a successful fight with starfish, Australian scientists from the Queensland University of Technology have created a
COTSBot (Crown-Of-Thorns Starfish robot) robot. It is a torpedo-shaped 30-kilogram apparatus, which can reach speeds of up to 2 meters per second. In battery mode, it is able to function for about 6 hours.
Well, with starfish, he fights, squirting poison, deadly to the animal. A small flotilla of such robots can destroy the coral reef quickly enough.