Robot fish to sniff out pollution

The carp shaped robots will operate in the port of Gijon and, if successful, the researchers hope the robots will be used in rivers, lakes and seas around the world. The project has been ommissioned and coordinated by engineering consultancy BMT Group. Five robot fish are being built by the robotics team at the University of Essex' School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering. The fish, which cost around £20,000 to make, will be 1.5m long and will move at 1m/s. The life like creatures will be equipped with tiny chemical sensors to find the source of potentially hazardous pollutants in the water, such as leaks from vessels in the port or underwater pipelines. Using WiFi technology, the 'fish' will transmit data to the port's control centre via a 'charging hub', where their batteries can be charged. According to the project, this approach will enable the source and scale of the pollution to be mapped in real time. Unlike previous robotic fish, says the company, the latest versions have autonomous navigation capabilities, enabling them to swim independently around the port. This will also enable them to return automatically to their hub to be recharged when battery life (approximately eight hours) is low. Rory Doyle, senior research scientist at BMT Group, said there are practical reasons for choosing this approach. "We are building on a design created by hundreds of millions of years' worth of evolution, which is incredibly energy efficient. This efficiency is something we need to ensure that our pollution detection sensors can navigate in the underwater environment for hours on end. "We will produce a system that allows the fish to search underwater, meaning we will be able to analyse not only chemicals on the surface of the water, but also those that are dissolved in the water."