Autonomous RoboFish at the London Aquarium

mikael writes "The London Aquarium currently has an exhibit based on autonomous robotic fish. Each fish is 50 cm long, 15 cm high, and 12cm wide with a maximum swim speed of 50cm/second with battery life lasting up to 5 hours at half speed. The BBC has more details (with video). Many more videos are available at the Robotics Video Gallery." From the article: "We have embedded sensors on board - so, unlike the previous fishes that have remote controls, these are fully autonomous and artificial-intelligence based ... This one is more life-like - it mimics normal swimming and sharp turning ... People get confused and think it's a real fish."

Comments

Re:These sound like an excellent pet!

[mrchaotica]

They require more frequent care than real fish, since you have to recharge the battery every five hours. Now, what they really ought to do is make an automatic charging station shaped like a little castle...

Turing Test

[Anonymous Coward]

"People get confused and think it's a real fish."

Now, if the fish get confuded and think they're real fish, then, we've got something.

Before Anyone Complains...

[Comatose51]

Before anyone complains about why they make robotics fishes instead of say, a robotic trash picker or something more useful, robotics have been useful in helping us understand biology. While most of us tend to look at robots as tools to serve some purpose of ours, some scientists see robots as models. They formulate a theory and build a robotic model to tend if that theory works. Why not a simulation? Because in the paraphrased words of someone I can't remember, "When you build a robot, you get the rest of the world for free."

One very interesting example of this is when they made a robotic pike or some species of fish that propels through water in a more efficient way than we previously thought was possible. Someone came up with a theory that its movements generate eddies that help propel it along more efficiently. So, they built a robotic model to test this theory and it worked. It did swim like a pike. Does that mean that really is how pikes swim? Not necessarily but it does give some credibility to the theory.

In any case, building robotic models of lifeforms isn't as pointless as it may seem. It's not always just for entertainment.

That's all nice, but, robot (fish) in an aquarium?

[Snar Bloot]

Yes, I read the article. Saw the pics. Pretty cool, I guess.

But I'm failing to see the interest in taking little Johnny to the aquarium to see "robot fish", in the same way I'd be a bit torqued off if I took my kids to the zoo and we saw robotic giraffes. Cool, yes. Unexpected, yes. What I'm there for, no.

If I took my kids to a "robotozoo" or whatever it might be, that's neat. But this sort of thing belongs in...maybe one of those hands-on sort of museums, or a kids science museum, or some place where you go to see cool robotics stuff.

I'm not knocking the technology here, or the software...but you put a pile of robotic trout in a nice little place a guy can toss a dry fly in and get a hit and get the sort of reactions you might with some real fish, NOW you have a robot that is really entertaining.

catch and release only, of course...at MY robot fish 'aquarium' you can't take your fish home. We weigh it, take your picture, and send it back with a new AI adjustment so it is SMARTER than your flesh-fish and you gotta do better next time to catch him

I guess while this is kinda cool, it's not an aquarium exhibit. The cool thing about a real aquarium is the fact it has REAL fish, with REAL behaviors, and the real variety that exists in nature. Don't you kinda think robot fish here are sort of like having a Sony (tm) pet dog in a zoo?