Robots are on the increase. It seems that wherever science can use a robot to do something, sometimes anything, it will. So for the concept of ship propulsion, enter ‘Smokey’, a new Robot that is being developed by Darmstadt.
The idea, is that by creating a robot that copies the motions of a fish, a new more eco-friendly ship propulsion system could be developed.
Ships often damage the seabed and coastlines are often eroded by submarine installations, Smokey, and his soft drive propulsion system, is hoped by his developers, to be an eco-friendly option for moving ships from one point to another. Especially as it is not just rocks and mud that is churned up or destroyed, but all related plant and marine life that goes with it.
Smokey consists of 10 sections that are covered in an elastic skin. He is 1.5m long- his size was worked out by basing him on a 5:1 ration with a sea bream. Smokey moves by snaking through the water, like a fish.
Scientist working on Smokey, are stuyding other fish, to try and mimic the fishes movements in to make him more efficient.
The idea of scientists copying animal movements is not new, as the evolutionary process has served the surviving animals well. Wouldn’t it be amazing if you had a robot that could run like a cheetah, or fly like an eagle, so when looking at a way to move through water, copying a fish is a sound idea.
Whether or not Smokey and his soft drive will ever propell a ship through the open waves, remains to be seen.
Source: Robotnext.
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