Robot Fish to Police Oceans

SHOAL, a partially European Union (EU) funded consortium which includes academics and business partners, today put its pollution hunting "robotfish" to the test in waters off Northern Spain.

In what some in the maritime community are seeing as science fiction becoming science fact, the 1.5 meter robots are being tested off the Port of Gijón to evaluate their ability to identify marine pollution.

By using chemical sensors fitted to the fish to do in-situ analysis, and Wi-Fi technology to communicate at-sea contamination conditions back to shore, the team says they can cut down the time it takes to detect pollutants, such as those from a bunker fuel spill or other marine fouling incident, from weeks to seconds.

Luke Speller, a scientist at British consultancy BMT Group who led the project said, "A ship could come into the harbour, leak some chemicals somewhere, then it's gone, all the way up the coastline.

"The idea is that we will use robot fish, which are in the harbour all of the time, and constantly checking for pollution."

The fish swim completely independently, as opposed to being remotely controlled, and can communicate with and work together with other "RoboFish", avoid obstacles, map where they are, and then return to base to "feed" at the end of their eight-hour battery life.

Life-like Movements

The choice of mimicking a fish's movements to propel the devices, the Group says, is nothing to do with aesthetics and compared to propellers or thrusters, is not only more efficient but they also don't get as easily tangled up or clogged by weeds.

Consortium member Ian Dukes from the University of Essex explained that "Over millions of years, fish have evolved the ultimate hydrodynamic shape, and we have tried to mimic that in the robot.

"They swim just like fish; they are really quite agile and can change direction quickly, even in shallow water."

That agility gives them an "incredibly small turning circle allowing them to navigate quickly in ports both to find pollution and avoid ships and the port infrastructure."

The result, the Group says, is a robot that is not only very maneuverable, but is also a low noise solution so "as to not disturb the environment when outside of busy ports".

The current generation of fish cost £20,000 per fish, or approximately US $31,500.

And as to what happens if they get caught up in fishing nets or someone tries to steal one of the high tech robots; SHOAL say that "as soon as they are removed from the water they set off a distress beacon that alerts the port authorities who can act immediately."