Underwater robot fits right in with other reef dwellers
I spy, with my little fisheye
WASHINGTON: When exploring marine environments, underwater robots tend to be a bull trout in a china shop, disturbing marine life with their bulk and disruptive propulsion. Enter SoFi, the soft, agile robotic fish with a delicate demeanour.
Scientists yesterday said they have created a remotecontrolled robot that swims quietly through coral reefs and schools of fish and uses a fisheye lens — of course — to capture highresolution photos and video with a camera built into its nose.
Dubbed SoFi, it can swim forward, move up and down, turn and change speeds, propelling itself by wiggling its tail from side to side like a real fish, a motion created by pumping water with a small motor into two balloonlike tail chambers. SoFi, built with a generic fish design, is white, weighs less than 1.6 kg and is about 47cm long. SoFi’s ‘‘soft artificial muscle’’ tail is made of silicone elastomer, a type of rubber. Its nose houses the electronic elements. It has two side fins for manoeuvring.
‘‘I chose SoFi, pronounced like Sophie, as a name because it not only abbreviates the word Soft Fish, but it also reminded me of a girl I liked a lot and had a crush on in high school,’’ said study lead author Robert Katzschmann, a robotics researcher and PhD candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
‘‘The name is mellifluous, just like the way the robot glides and undulates in water,’’ added roboticist Daniela Rus, CSAIL’s director.
SoFi is operated using a waterproofed Super Nintendo controller by a diver who can be almost 21m away.