These robo-fish autonomously form schools and work as search parties
Researchers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have created a set of fish-shaped underwater robots that can autonomously navigate and find each other, cooperating to perform tasks or just placidly school together.
Just as aerial drones are proving themselves useful in industry after industry, underwater drones could revolutionize ecology, shipping and other areas where a persistent underwater presence is desirable but difficult.
The last few years have seen interesting new autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs, but the most common type is pretty much a torpedo efficient for cruising open water, but not for working one’s way through the nooks and crannies of a coral reef or marina.
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IMAGE: These fish-inspired robots can synchronize their movements without any outside control. Based on the simple production and detection of LED light, the robotic collective exhibits complex self-organized behaviors, including aggregation,. view more
Credit: Image courtesy of Self-organizing Systems Research Group
Schools of fish exhibit complex, synchronized behaviors that help them find food, migrate and evade predators. No one fish or team of fish coordinates these movements nor do fish communicate with each other about what to do next. Rather, these collective behaviors emerge from so-called implicit coordination individual fish making decisions based on what they see their neighbors doing.