Millions of fish and marine wildlife are dying as a result of the massive oil spill off the Gulf Coast.

What if there were ways to lead fish away from such dangers and direct them to safer waters?  It might be possible with the leadership of remote-controlled fish-like robots.

Maurizio Porfiri, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, used smart materials to create a robot that would be accepted by real fish as an equal and a leader. The new materials included “ionic polymers that swell and shrink in response to electrical stimulation from a battery, propelling the robot,” reports NYU Poly.

Real fish leaders beat their tails faster and accelerate to gain attention.  They also tend to be larger than their peers.  Taking these factors into account, Porfiri created a robot that moves silently and with the same movements of real fish.  However, it can’t yet dive or surface and it still requires batteries.

The goal is for these fish-like robots to lead real fish away from power plant turbines and similar dangers.  The same robot technology might be applied to birds, to direct them to safe wintering grounds, or even humans, to lead them to safe areas in the event of a fire or other disaster.

In other fishy news, a new blimp designed in Switzerland mimics the graceful movements of the rainbow trout. Using no engines or propellers, the Airfish is able to “swim” through the sky, keeping itself aloft with acrylic polymers connected by carbon electrodes. These materials deliver a charge that causes the blimp to expand and contract in a fish-like shimmy.  Now that’s one divine dirigible.

Here’s a video:

Images:
laszlo-photo/Flickr
NYU-Poly

Filed under: e-News, Mechanical, Ocean

Tags: Biomimicry, Mechanical, Ocean