Inspired by the water boatman bug, a team at the University of Bristol has created the Row-bot, a robot prototype that is designed to punt itself across the top of the water in dirty ponds or lakes, and “eat” the microbes it scoops up.
The Row-bot consists of two main elements – a propulsion mechanism to move the Row-bot around using a paddle operated by a minuscule 0.75 Watt, brushed DC motor, and its “stomach,” where a microbial fuel cell (MFC) supplies the electric current to the motor powering the paddle.
The whole system works when the robot ingests some water, with the MFC creating electricity from the bacteria contained within it, which allows it to make a few strokes of its paddle. This movement then lets Row-bot take in more dirty water, and the process starts all over again. This is what sets the Row-bot apart from other similar miniature swimming robots (such as Harvard Microrobotics’ Robobee); it is completely powered from the medium in which it swims.
The MFC – like the one developed by UWE Bristol to generate electric current from urine – used in the Row-bot is similar to a normal fuel cell, except that in place of more common fuels to power the process, it uses bacteria to create an electrical current by mimicking bacterial interactions found in nature.
The researchers believe that the device has the potential for many uses as an energetically autonomous robot, including in remote sensing and environmental monitoring and clean-up. In this vein, the next stage planned for Row-bot is the integration of monitoring and control subsystems, along with some additional switching circuitry all powered by the MFC.
The results of this research were recently presented in a paper at the 2015 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) in Hamburg, Germany.
Source: http://www.gizmag.com/
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