Vehicles have been designed for underwater explorations. Success has been mustered, but scientists over at MIT think, robots can be made to do the tasks of monitoring pipelines, checking pollution in water and finding sunken ships, better. Thus, Professor Kamal Youcef-Toumi and PhD student Pablo Valdivia from MIT have built a school of robotic fish, which given their small size can maneuver into tight areas where the underwater autonomous vehicles cannot.
Measuring lesser than a foot in length, the mechanical fish are stuffed with a motor in the middle, which initiates a kind of wave in the robotic body pushing it forward. Mimic the real fish in a swim to near perfection, the fish derive power from 2.5 to 5 watts (depending on the robot size) from an external source, the scientists are however working on ways to place batteries within the fishes. Video after the jump.
Via: MIT
