Robotic Jellyfish Draws Indefinite Energy From Ocean

Recently, few researchers have designed a working model that resembles a jellyfish and imitates its natural behavior. The robotic device is powered by heat-producing reactions catalyzed on its surface. Interestingly, it uses hydrogen and oxygen present in water as fuel. In a broader sense, one can say that the robot uses green power and can run for an indefinite period by grabbing energy from the water.

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Robotic-JellyFish

Yonas Tadesse, leading author of a Robojelly study claimed that this is the first successful attempt to use underwater robot by fuelling it with hydrogen from external source. To be specific, the reactions that are carried on the surface are exothermic, thereby delivering immense heat to the robot’s artificial muscles to help them change their shape.

The actuators used are made of nickel-titanium also coated with multi-wall carbon nanotube sheets which are otherwise coated with platinum powder. The reactions caused due to hydrogen and oxygen essentially activates the actuators. The researchers even claim that the byproduct released by the robot is ‘vaporized water’ and has ultimately no adverse effect on the environment.

Robojelly’s actuators reciprocate the muscles of the natural jellyfish; these muscles contract around the head thereby impelling the robot to swim upwards. On the other hand, it is expected that this robot funded by the Office of Naval Research will recreate new path for surveillance underwater using automatic submarines. The researchers are further planning to power up the individual muscular elements facilitating the control of direction.

Check out the video below to see Robojelly in action:



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