There is a robotic fish that spies on real fish. The robotic fish was built by a talented team of scientists at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.It was designed to swim naturally with of other normal fish. One thing to point out is that they also made it to spy on fish. It will use cameras to capture the behavior of fish such as sharks. Shocking, I find that this is very strange. But to be fair, this could be a useful tool especially to study how sharks behavior because they are dangerous creatures.
According to the article that makeup of the robot is quite fascinating. It is made of soft silicone rubber, flexible plastic and 3D-printed pieces. In addition to that, It uses a specially made sound-based communication system developed by the scientist to receive movement instructions. After reading that it amazed me of how much thought was put into this project.
According to the article “The quiet motor-powered tail lets it mimic the quick-changing swimming patterns and movements of real fish. In addition, it touts sensors to help it avoid hitting or damaging marine environments like delicate reefs.” Basically the tail will be a vital part of the fish blending in with real fish.
One scientist who worked on the project said that the hardest part of the project was making sure the fish would be able to move smoothly up and down the water.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/21/technology/mit-fish-robot/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/21/science/robot-fish.html
I believe the concept of a robotic fish is very interesting. I understand the need and want for it since their are so many unknowns in the ocean. This could eliminate a lot of uncertainty regarding sea life and other sea conditions. It seems as though this has been very thought out. The scientists who made created the fish made sure the fish was made out of the right materials, use sound waves, and coded messages. However, I think it could easily have come problems.
A large concern I have is that the battery life only lasts for 45 minutes. I don’t think that this is enough time to really see anything. That also makes me feel that the robotic fish could easily shut down and then be left to pollute the ocean. Another issue is that other sea creatures could see this robotic fish and get easily scared, creating the opposite objective of what the fish was meant to do. I think that fish will be able to tell that it is a fake fish and may disrupt the environment instead of helping it. I also believe that most of the unknown about the ocean is at deeper depth than the fish could actually go. I believe the robotic fish has so much potential, but still has a long way to go before any mind-blowing scientific discoveries are made.