Robotic jellyfish might one day be used to clean the oceans.
Author: Daryl Austin
Marine plastic pollution is a bigger problem than some may realize. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), at least 14 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year; and plastic makes up 80 percent of all the marine debris found across the water's surface and below.
Such pollutants threaten coastal tourism, the health of marine species, food safety and quality (and with it human health), and has been shown to contribute to climate change.
Among a myriad of solutions and strategies suggested and followed to aid this challenge has been a fleet of underwater robots that operate to clean up parts of the world's oceans. But such robots have often been bulky with rigid bodies, and unable to explore and sample in complex and unstructured environments. What's more, they are usually noisy and disturbing to the marine life around them due to their electrical motors and hydraulic pumps.
For a more suitable and quiet design, a team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) in Stuttgart, Germany decided to look to nature for inspiration. They built a jellyfish-inspired, versatile, energy-efficient and nearly noiseless robot they call Jellyfish-Bot