We¡¯ve seen humans develop robots that come in different shapes and sizes -- some walk like a four-legged animal while some help in manufacturing cars and lifting heavy objects.?
However, now, researchers have sought inspiration from schools of fishes and developed underwater robots that can autonomously move in swarms.
Reported first by AFP, the fish-robot is called Bluebot and it is fitted with cameras as well as blue LED lights that help it recognise the direction and distance from each other in the water tanks.
Unlike vehicles that swim underwater which conventionally use a propellor, Bluebot moves in the water, just like an actual fish with tiny fins, that helps them manoeuvre easily and naturally underwater.
Bluebots are actually inspired from Blue tang fish that are native to the coral reefs of the Indo-Pacific. These robots are roughly four inches long and have been 3D printed from the ground up.
Developed by Florian Berlinger, from Harvard University, he shared a test of a search and rescue mission, where robots were spread out across a water tank to find a light source. When one of the Bluebots from the school found light, it instantly signalled them, to gather around.?
Berlinger said in a statement, "It's definitely useful for future applications -- for example a search mission in the open ocean where you want to find people in distress and rescue them quickly."?
He also revealed that the Bluebots could be used for environmental monitoring or inspecting specific infrastructures. He further added, stating that robot collectives could help us better understand collective intelligence in future, "Other researchers have reached out to me already to use my Bluebots as fish surrogates for biological studies on fish swimming and schooling."
Bluebots are still at a nascent stage of development. Berlinger is now working on improving the design further and designing to eliminate LEDs out of the equation while also making it ready to step outside laboratories to study underwater spaces like coral reefs.