Swiss develop robots made of fish food

Lausanne research team develops aquatic robots from fish food Keystone-SDA

A Lausanne research team has developed a robot made from fish food. The edible device will collect data on the condition of water bodies or distribute nutrients and medicines in the water.

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It thus offers a safe – and nutritious – alternative to environmental sensors made of artificial polymers and electronics, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) said on Thursday.

The robot developed by EPFL researchers is about five centimetres long and has the shape of a boat. It consists of fish food pellets that have been ground into powder and mixed with gelatine to form the structure. The researchers presented the robot to the scientific community in a study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications.

+ Switzerland’s bathing waters continue to improve

The edible robot from EPFL works according to a simple physico-chemical principle known as the Marangoni effect. Many people will be familiar with the effect from school experiments in which home-made volcanoes are made to erupt.

Inside the robot is a small chamber containing citric acid and baking soda. These substances react with each other and produce CO2. The CO2 pushes a liquid (also edible) called propylene glycol out through a small fuel channel. When the propylene glycol hits the surface of the water, it lowers the surface tension locally. This propels the robot forwards.

According to the university, this allows the robot to move freely on the surface of the water for several minutes. The device is not equipped with a remote control. However, the researchers have built boats with a left-hand twist and boats with a right-hand twist.

According to the EPFL, this form of control is sufficient to distribute the robots on the surface of the water. In addition, the robots’ locomotion is similar to that of insects. This could be an advantage for various applications.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

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