Here come robotic fishes that could help scientists improve underwater vehicles used to study fragile coral reefs, repair damaged deep-sea oil rigs or investigate sunken ships.
Inspired by electric black ghost knifefish of the Amazon basin, Illinois-based Northwestern University researchers have developed agile fish robots.
Current underwater vehicles are large and lack agility, which means that working close to living or man-made structures is nearly impossible.
"We have taken lessons learned from the knifefish about movement and non-visual sensing and developed new technologies that should improve underwater vehicles," explained Malcolm MacIver, a robotics expert from Northwestern University.
MacIver and colleagues have developed more than half a dozen robots based on the weakly electric knifefish.
A major motivation for creating the robotic models of the knifefish is to generate a better understanding of how the nervous system combines the acquisition of information with movement.
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The black ghost knifefish hunts at night in the murky rivers of the Amazon basin using closely integrated sensing and movement systems.
It has the unique ability to sense with a self-generated weak electric field around its entire body (electrosense) and to swim in multiple directions.
The fish moves both horizontally (forward and backward) as well as vertically using a ribbon-like fin on the underside of its body.
"Future integration of electrosense and ribbon fin technology into a knifefish robot should result in a vehicle capable of navigating complex 3-D geometries in murky waters - tasks that are impossible with current underwater vehicles," informed MacIver.
He presented his work at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Chicago Feb 15.