Researchers have developed a tiny, self-sufficient robot that can zip across water.
This groundbreaking development is poised to revolutionize underwater exploration using aquatic robots, researchers at Binghamton University in New York, who developed the tiny robot, said.
What’s powering the tiny robot?
The aquatic robots harness a unique power source: bacteria.
This biological energy system surpasses solar, kinetic, and thermal alternatives in its resilience to challenging environments. A specialized Janus interface, hydrophilic on one side and hydrophobic on the other, enables the robot to efficiently absorb nutrients from the water. These nutrients sustain bacterial spore production, providing a continuous energy supply.
Binghamton University Professor Seokheun Choi, an expert in bioelectronics and director of the Center for Research in Advanced Sensing Technologies and Environmental Sustainability has been at the forefront of bacteria-powered biobattery research for a decade.
With support from the Office of Naval Research, Choi and his team have developed a biobattery capable of powering a self-propelled aquatic device. This groundbreaking technology has the potential to last up to 100 years, researchers said.
The Binghamton team generated approximately 1 milliwatt of power from their biobattery, which is sufficient to propel the robot and operate onboard sensors.
Robots can collect environmental data
These sensors can then collect vital environmental data, including water temperature, pollution levels, maritime traffic patterns, and aquatic animal behavior.
The next challenge is identifying the optimal bacteria for powering these robots in the harsh ocean environment, and according to Choi, while initial tests used common bacteria, a deeper understanding of marine microbial life is necessary.
He suggests that combining different bacterial strains, potentially optimized through machine learning, could significantly enhance the robots’ power output and longevity.
Into the future: A trillion interconnected devices
By 2035, the world is expected to be inundated with over a trillion interconnected devices, forming an expansive “Internet of Things.”
Virtually any object, from the minuscule to the monumental, will contribute data to a central hub without human intervention, futurists often predict. However, this vision faces significant hurdles as 71% of Earth’s surface is covered by water.
The unique challenges of aquatic environments have prompted the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to launch the “Ocean of Things” initiative.
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