Swiss Researchers Built a Robot Fish That Other Fish Will Follow.

Swiss Researchers Built a Robot Fish That Other Fish Will Follow.

In associate degree study to examine if animals can react to robotic tries to move with them, Swiss researchers have designed a robotic fish that may with success imitate and mingle with zebrafish."We created a sort of 'secret agent' that may infiltrate these faculties of little fish," says Frank Bonnet of Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL).

EPFL researchers selected the tiny fish thanks to their abrupt bursts of movement. It's troublesome to make an automaton that may integrate into a species like a zebrafish, that have a deeply developed "lateral line network," a sensory network evolved to observe the pattern of water movement. This sense is what permits fish like zebrafish to suddenly modification directions as a gaggle.
The scientists thought-about the physical characteristics of zebrafish, such shape, colour and stripe once choosing a species to review. Their behaviour in faculties was additionally a focus: acceleration speed, linear speed, the distance between individual fish within the faculties, the dimensions of the faculties themselves, individual vibrations and motion, and therefore the rhythm at that they move their tails.

Bonnet associate degreed his fellow scientists place the automaton in a storage tank and let it begin interacting with 5 completely different faculties of zebrafish. At seven centimetres, the automaton fish is slightly larger than a standard zebrafish, however, it mimics the fish in alternative ways in which. With a swimming mechanism that improved over time, "the fish accepted the automaton into their faculties with none drawback," says Bonnet. "And the automaton was conjointly able to mimic the fish's behaviour, prompting them to vary direction or swim from one area to a different."

Scientists have long taken inspiration from animals once building robots. however, employing an automaton to move with animals will facilitate researchers study biology still as artificial intelligence. And for Bonnet and his cluster at the EPFL, their robots are becoming a lot of complicated. this can be a accelerate from their last project, that concerned building robots to imitate cockroaches.

"Fish are rather more sophisticated animals," says Bonnet. "To integrate into associate degree insect community, an automaton merely must emit bound styles of pheromones. however, integration into a community of vertebrates looks to involve more criteria, in terms of such things as look, movement and vibration."