Some 400 kilometers from the nearest sea, engineering students at ETH Zurich in Switzerland are hard at work on next-generation robots that could change the way the world’s oceans are studied.
“Eve”, the robotic fish, swings its silicone tail from side to side, powered by pumps hidden inside, as it glides fluidly through the cold waters of Lake Zurich, where it is being tested for SURF-eDNA. The student-led group has spent the last two years building a school of soft robotic fish – of which Eve is the latest.
“By making Eve look like a fish, we can be minimally invasive in the ecosystem we are researching,” master’s student Dennis Baumann told CNN, adding that the biomimetic design should prevent other fish or marine life from being frightened by her. presence. “We can blend in, we can blend into the ecosystem,” he added.
Eve’s ability to camouflage herself as a fish is not her only use. The autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is also equipped with a camera for filming underwater and a sonar that, when combined with an algorithm, allows it to avoid obstacles.
The AUV also has a filter to collect DNA from the environment, known as “eDNA,” while it swims. The eDNA particles can be sent to a laboratory for sequencing to determine which species live in the body of water.
“All animals that are in the environment have lost their DNA, so there is DNA floating around that we can find,” Martina Lüthi, a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich, told CNN.
The students hope that Eve will be able to give scientists a more detailed picture of the oceans and their inhabitants. Despite covering more than 70% of our planetMuch of what lies beneath the surface remains a mystery.
Tools such as AUVs and remotely operated vehicles are increasingly used to explore the ocean and learn more about underwater habitats. The startup Aquaai, founded in Californiafor example, it has developed clownfish-like drones that can collect information such as oxygen, salinity and pH levels in waterways; and last year, a rover captured the deepest fish ever filmed at a depth of 8,300 meters (27,350 feet).
The use of eDNA to monitor biodiversity is growing, but sampling can be rudimentary – some scientists still collect it by pouring water into a cup tilted on the side of a boat.
More advanced tools that can study environments in greater detail could be vital to better protecting Earth’s oceans at a time when ocean habitats face unprecedented threats from climate change, overfishing and other human activities.
“We want to build a reliable tool for biologists,” said Baumann, who added that he hopes that one day they can scale up their technology so that it is accessible to any scientist who wants to use it. “Maybe we can prevent species from becoming endangered or dying out.”
Want to know more about Eve, the robot fish? Vote here to see the technology showcased in a special television episode of Tech for Good that will air in November.
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