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Robot Jellyfish Could Be Powered By Seawater

Friday, April 5, 2013 10:08

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(Before It's News)

This post comes to us from Planetsave.com. For more along these lines, visit Planetsave or some of its most popular categories: Global Warming, Science, Going Green Tips, Animals, or 10 Friday Photos.

Researchers at Virginia Tech, the University of Texas at Dallas and some other universities are working on the development of robotic jellyfish for a project funded by the US Navy.

Image Credit: Dante Alighieri

The propulsion mechanism for the artificial jellyfish employs hydrogen and oxygen mixed with seawater. A chemical reaction results, which causes material in the robotic jellyfish resembling muscles to contract and push water out of its body. When the water is pushed out, the jellyfish’s body is moved through water. The beauty of this propulsion system is that it doesn’t use anything electrical which would require a conventional power source such as a battery and keeping any circuits, chips or wires completely dry.

This chemical system seems better suited to long-term water travel and durability of the robots, as opposed to ones with an electrical design. These robots use a memory-shape alloy which can change position, but reverts back to the original one afterwards. The only waste created by the movement of the nickel-titanium alloy is water vapor, which is not harmful to the marine environment.

The next step for the Robo Jelly researches is to make their robots be able to move in different directions. Once this ability is implemented, they could be used for environmental monitoring and surveillance. One can imagine pods of them being used at oil drilling sites or for marine field research. For example, some species of sea turtles eat jelly fish, and they could be observed closely for counting the endangered ones. Also, damage to coral reef systems could be documented, without human divers having to do the labor of visual inspections in water where sharks may be present.

Additionally, they could be used by the Navy for information gathering.