Ocean cleaning weapon: bionic robot jellyfish can suck them away without touching garbage

CTOnews.com, April 27 (Xinhua) Marine garbage is a serious environmental problem. It not only pollutes sea water, but also harms marine life. To solve this problem, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Germany have invented a robotic jellyfish that can use its own flapping power to suck away garbage from the ocean floor without touching it.

The robotic jellyfish is about the size of a palm and consists of a series of six actuators filled with artificial muscles called HASEL. Artificial muscle is an oil bag wrapped with electrodes. When the electrodes are electrified, they discharge to the surrounding sea water, pushing the oil in the oil bag back and forth, causing the robot jellyfish to flap. This movement not only allows the robot jellyfish to move forward in the water, but also generates water around the jellyfish, sucking up small particles from the ocean floor, which can be used to remove garbage from fragile marine environments such as coral reefs.

Scientists say the robotic jellyfish mimics the movement of real jellyfish, and jellyfish in nature also capture food and nutrients by flapping. This robotic jellyfish has many advantages, such as almost no noise, coupled with their non-contact methods, no negative impact on the marine environment and organisms, and the ability to collect fragile biological samples, such as fish eggs.

Although robotic jellyfish can clean up marine trash without actually grabbing anything, the researchers say robots can also perform grasping actions when two actuators are close to each other in a clamp gesture. Two robots can work together to pick up more complex objects, such as masks, from the bottom of the sea.

However, CTOnews.com notes that the current robotic jellyfish has a serious limitation, which is that it needs to be connected to power lines. But scientists are trying to solve the problem. They have installed a battery and wireless communication device on a sample and let it swim freely in the pond of the Max Planck Stuttgart campus. Although the sample has yet to change direction, scientists say the next step will be to add this function.

The study has been published in the journal Scientific Progress.