Robot jellyfish could help service offshore wind farms

摘要

Some of the last areas of pristine and untouched wilderness on Earth exist beneath the seas. Yet these marine ecosystems are under threat from deep-sea mining projects, oil rigs and offshore wind farms. When these facilities are built and maintained, they tend to damage the rich ecological networks around them.Roboticists and engineers are working to address this problem, searching for new ways to create machines that might help repair, maintain or inspect the undersea components of the growing offshore industry. Led by colleagues Thierry Bujard and Gabriel Weymouth from the University of Southampton, UK, my team has found a possible solution to this problem, designing underwater robots inspired by nature's smartest swimmers: the ultra-efficient moon jellyfish.Traditional aquatic robots are designed for two main purposes: for efficient, longdistance navigation across open stretches of water, and for tasks requiring high manoeuvrability close to submerged structures. Both types of robot are effective, but few robots combine efficient travel with high manoeuvrability. That means many aquatic robots are too clumsy and clunky to support the offshore industry without also harming the undersea environment.Indeed, with the expansion of offshore developments to increasingly fragile environments, even state-of-the-art marine robots are struggling to cope with the complexity of their missions. Lots of research is currently going into developing autonomous deep-sea robots, with initiatives like Xprize offering funding to some of the most exciting ideas.