Fish Robots Aid in Understanding Animal Movement

The black ghost knifefish of the Amazon basin hunts at night in the murky rivers and moves both horizontally and vertically using a ribbon-like fin on the underside of its body. Its amazing dexterity has made it the object of many scientific studies over the last few decades. The black ghost knifefish also has  the ability to sense with a self-generated weak electric field around its entire body.

The many features this fish exhibits are highly desirable traits for underwater robots. Given that current underwater bots are not very advanced, tend to be large in size and have very little flexibility when it comes to changing directions and swimming in the water, the black ghost knifefish make ideal study subjects to plan improvements in the robots.

Malcolm MacIver from Northwestern University is using an interdisciplinary team of researchers to develop agile fish robots based on the model of the black ghost knifefish. These robotic fish would be able to study fragile coral reefs without fear of damage, repair damaged deep-sea oil rigs which are difficult for humans to work on or even investigate sunken ships to search for hidden treasure.

More than a dozen robotic fish have already been created by Malcolm’s team of researchers, and this is a science project which is showing tremendous potential for use in the real world.