Day 57: iFish on pollution patrol

Don’t worry: the fish is fake. Or do worry — because it could show up one day at a beach near you.

A team of researchers is preparing to release a school of mechanical, remote controlled fish in a Spanish Port within the next two years, to send information via a wireless signal about water pollution.

Scientists from the University of Essex, in the UK, and industry partners, are basing the pollution patrol on smaller, shinier versions of the remote-controlled fish that have graced London’s aquarium since 2005 (pictured). 

Participating researcher Rory Doyle is a scientist at BMT Group Ltd, an independent engineering and risk management consultancy. He said the working version of the fish won’t be as visually fancy as the aquarium kind — but they’ll be mechanically impressive.

“In using robotic fish we are building on a design created by hundreds of millions of years’ worth of evolution which is incredibly energy efficient,” Doyle said. 

The life-like creatures, which will mimic the undulating movement of real fish, 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. Then they’ll transmit the information to the port’s control centre via a “charging hub” where the fish can charge their batteries. This will enable the authorities to map in real time the source and scale of the pollution.

Unlike previous robotic fish that work with remote controls, these will have autonomous navigation capabilities, enabling them to swim independently around the port without any human interaction. And they’ll return automatically to their recharge hub when battery life (about eight hours) gets low.

The five fish are being built by Professor Huosheng Hu and his robotics team at Essex, at a cost of $28,000 apiece. He hopes to release them into the water by the end of next year. Each fish will measure 1.6 yards long, about the size of a seal, and swim at a maximum speed of about a yard per second.

If the project works, the team hopes that the fish will used in rivers, lakes and seas across the world to detect pollution. 

I just hope they’re able to stay out of the jaws of predators — and avoid scaring the heck out of vacationing children at the beach.

There’s a video of these bad boys here: Robot fish