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"New power sources bear a shocking resemblance to the electricity-making organs inside electric eels. These artificial electric eel organs are made up of water-based polymer mixes called hydrogels. Such soft, flexible battery-like devices, described online October 13 in Nature, could power soft robots or next-gen wearable and implantable tech." 
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From
phys
"Ribbon halfbeak are a species of fish with the ability to fly above the sea surface - but unlike true 'flying fish', they lack the necessary hind wing fins. So how do they fly? Dr Yoshinobu Inada from Tokai University, Japan says, "Investigating the design of ribbon halfbeak could provide useful information for the optimal design of tandem wing airplanes."
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The mudskipper is a fascinating animal, in that it's a fish that both swims in the water and crawls on the land. It's probably not unlike the prehistoric fishes that first ventured out of the ocean, hundreds of millions of years ago. Looking at it, you might think that its two pectoral fins do all the work when it's out of the water, while its tail just flaps around. By building a robotic version of the mudskipper, however, scientists have learned that its tail plays a crucial role while it's on the land – the finding could have implications for the design of walking robots.
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Scores of people take expensive management training to learn how to guide colleagues toward a common goal, but maybe they could get less costly lessons by watching how certain fish take the lead in their schools. After training about 90 golden shiners (Notemigonus crysoleucas, seen above) to find a dish of fish food, scientists tagged these potential leaders, released them back in the tank individually with eight untrained fish, and then waited to see what would happen. In some cases, a veteran fish swam around as if it had never been in the tank before, leaving its schoolmates equally confused. Others made a beeline for the soggy fare and were more likely to reach it, but in their haste failed to communicate with fellow fish and left them in their wake. Most of the trained shiners, however, were effective leaders; just assertive enough to indicate which direction the school should travel but not so assertive that they lost the group and the protection it provided, the scientists report online before print in The American Naturalist. The study is the first to show experimentally that such a tradeoff—between achieving a goal as quickly as possible and keeping followers—exists in animals other than humans, possibly revealing some fundamental component of good leadership, the researchers say. So, the next time you need to get your colleagues to meet a deadline, why not give channeling your inner golden shiner a try?
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"Another incredible adaptive animal and insect feature is the development of protective scales that provide insulation, and serve as a camouflage to ward off predators. In fact, animal scale functioning is so impressive that recently “dermal modification” — or the adaptive properties of animal skins — has inspired the scientific development of human armor using 3D printing."
Yves Bonis's curator insight,
February 27, 2015 4:08 AM
Très inspirant... d'autant qu'on doit pouvoir en faire autre chose que des armures. Allons au-delà du simple fac simile des fonctions du vivant et je crois que nous pourrons nous inclure correctement dans l'avenir du monde.
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"A number of robotic fish are going to be used in an experiment in the port of Gijon in Spain in order to evaluate how effectively and cost-efficiently they can detect water pollution. The carp-shaped robots are part of a three-year research project of Huosheng Hu and his robotics team at the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, University of Essex. The robot fish could be used to inspect rivers, lakes and seas. The life-like creatures, which mimic the undulating movement of real fish, are 1.5 meters (5 feet) long and will be equipped with tiny chemical sensors. These sensors are used to find sources of potentially hazardous pollutants in the water, such as leaks from vessels in the port or underwater pipelines. When they recharge their batteries via a “charging hub” they will be able to transmit the information to the port’s control center. This will enable the authorities to map the source and scale of the pollution virtually in real time."
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From
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"A quirk of nature has long baffled biologists: Why do animals push in directions that don't point toward their goal, like the side-to-side sashaying of a running lizard or cockroach? An engineer building a robot would likely avoid these movements because they seem wasteful. So why do animals behave this way?
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"Gizmag takes a deeper look at John Dabiri's school of fish wind turbine array concept, and wonders whether the idea of packing turbines into as tight a space as possible might overlook some wind energy fundamentals."
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The biomimetic design could increase water delivery efficiency, decrease water-borne illness, and lower wastewater operating costs.
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Nissan's EPORO robot car prototypes are programmed to think and act like a school of fish to avoid collision.
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A team of researchers from China and the U.S. has created a robot that is able to mimic a remora fish by adhering quickly and strongly to underwater objects.
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"Using a mathematical model and the mackerel pectoral fin as an illustrative example, [...] researchers show how fin stiffness may be changed by applying a u-shaped curvature at the fin's base. The effect, the researchers say, might underlie the ability of fish to swim at widely varying speeds in all kinds of currents with great maneuverability. [...] The researchers say their model suggests intriguing possibilities for the design of robotic swimmers."
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Filters can be found all around us, from our cars to our coffee makers. But they have one universal quality: they get clogged eventually. But a 3D printed solution could be just around the corner, as the Professor of Biology and ichthyologist Laurie Sanderson from the College of William and Mary has a patent pending for a bio-inspired alternative. Learning from the mouth structure of filter-feeding fish (using 3D printed models), she has developed a new mechanism that prevents filter clogging by trapping particles in vortices in the fluids.
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The European Union CoCoRo research consortium has been developing three varieties of autonomous underwater robots that school together like fish. By doing so, the little bots can share and learn from each others' "knowledge" of their environment, acting as a collective cognitive system.
Maricarmen Husson's curator insight,
June 11, 2015 5:35 PM
*A partir de abril de 2011, la Unión Europea CoCoRo (Colectivo Cognitive Robots) consorcio de investigación ha desarrollado tres variedades de robots submarinos autónomos que hacen escuela juntos como peces. De esta manera, los pequeños robots pueden compartir y aprender de "conocimiento" cada otros de su entorno, actuando como un sistema cognitivo colectivo que es más inteligente que cualquiera de sus partes individuales. Los robots se comunican entre sí a través de una función de intermitente LED, utilizando la electrónica de a bordo, como los sistemas de visión por ordenador, brújulas y acelerómetros para encontrar su camino alrededor de los ambientes acuáticos. Utilizando un algoritmo inspirado en el comportamiento de la agrupación de las abejas (no pescados!), Pueden buscar a otros de su especie y luego asentarse juntos alrededor de una ubicación de la base central, tomando conciencia del creciente tamaño de su grupo a medida que lleguen más robots. Entonces pueden dejar ese grupo para ir por sus propias misiones, posteriormente, volver a compartir sus hallazgos con el grupo. En un experimento, grupos de dos tipos de los robots - "Jeff" robots y robots "Lirio" - se pusieron en una piscina para localizar un avión estrellado simulado (en realidad un grupo de imanes, que se utiliza para simular campo electro-magnético del avión) . Mientras que los robots Lily patrullaban la superficie, el Jeffs fue más profundo. Una vez que uno de los robots Jeff situados los imanes, lo que solía sus LEDs para indicar la otra Jeffs, que respondió mediante la recopilación de alrededor de ella sobre el "restos". Los robots Lily observaron este comportamiento desde arriba, y respondieron formando un racimo en la superficie en la misma ubicación. Los robots también se han probado en el océano abierto en Italia, donde, según informes, fueron capaces de agruparse y patrullar a pesar de las olas, las corrientes y el agua salada corrosiva. Aunque el proyecto CoCoRo concluyó en septiembre pasado, los investigadores apenas están empezando a conocer los resultados. Se espera que la tecnología podría finalmente encontrar su camino en los robots acuáticos escolares autónomos utilizados para el monitoreo ecológico, reconocimiento, u otras aplicaciones.
Algunos de los robots puede verse en acción, en el vídeo a continuación.
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From
phys
Researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have taken inspiration from nature—from fish, in particular—to design and develop novel underwater propulsion, control, and sensing solutions for near-shore and littoral zone missions.
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"Human body armor has come a long way since the steel-plated suits of the Middle Ages, but protective animal structures — such as some shells and scales — still beat the most sophisticated man-made gear in terms of mobility and rigidity. Researchers at MIT are now using3D printing to bring humans up to speed with their animal kin by studying some of the sturdiest forms of animal armor, particularly fish scales, to design gear that matches the flexibility, comfort and durability found in the natural world."
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The giant sunfish is a highly adapted jellyfish hunter and deep-water diver. What can we learn from his strange technique?
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"Researchers at Stanford University have developed a small aircraft that resembles a flying fish which can jump and glide over a greater distance than an equivalent jumping robot. Using a carbon fiber spring to take off, the jumpglider has a pivoting wing that stays out of the way during ascent, but which locks into place to glide farther on the way down."
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Speedy tuna capable of swimming tirelessly in the Earth's oceans have inspired the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to fund a lookalike robot for underwater patrols. The "BIOSwimmer" robot features faithfully replicated fins and a flexible tail to pull off quick maneuvers like the real-life fish.Homeland Security made the choice to fund the robot made by the Boston Engineering Corporation in Waltham, Mass., with an eye toward missions such as exploring the flooded areas of ships, inspecting oil tankers or patrolling U.S. harbors to watch out for suspicious activity.
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