MSU Collaboration Spawns Robotic Fish to Monitor Water Quality

November 2, 2009

Nature inspires technology for an engineer and an ecologist at Michigan State University. They’re developing robots that use advanced materials to swim like fish to probe underwater environments.

“Fish are very efficient,” explained Xiaobo Tan, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. “They can perform very efficient locomotion and maneuvering in the water.”
Robotic fish – perhaps schools of them operating autonomously for months – could give researchers far more precise data on aquatic conditions, deepening our knowledge of critical water supplies and habitats.

Tan and Elena Litchman, an assistant professor of zoology based at MSU’s Kellogg Biological Station on Gull Lake in Kalamazoo County, recently won funding from the National Science Foundation to integrate their research.

To read the full story, go to http://news.msu.edu/story/7057/&topic_id=13.