Many robots have been designed for the benefit of mankind taking over continuously repetitive tasks or in some cases battling other robots for entertainment purposes. However, recently experiments have been done that may allow humans to help out animal populations in times of danger.
Maurizio Porfiri and Stefano Marras from New York's Polytechnic institute have designed a biomimetic robot fish to help study collective fish behavior. The robot fish is the first of its kind engineered to simulate animal mobility. In recently conducted experiments, the robot fish was placed into a flowing stream of water with a real fish to analyze the behavior between the two. When the robot fish remained motionless in the water, the real fish seemed to ignore it and swim about in a sporadic pattern. On the other hand, when the robot fish was simulating natural fish movements and swimming in the water the real fish tended to align in a specific formation with the robot. As the robot swam in formation, the real fish's movements slowed, proving that the fish was saving energy by following along behind the robot. Additionally, this shows that groups of fish may be lead in certain directions by a robot fish. This can prove helpful when humans create ecological disasters such as oil spills that can wipe out endangered species of fish. Nevertheless, it can also help us better understand the behavior of fish.
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