concepts
nnnnnn
Here Comes
Robofish
In the D-wing of the dreary labyrinth known as the
Technological Institute on Northwestern University’s
campus, a small lab has plans for a robotic fish
BY Chris Sweeney
W
hen I walked into the
MacIver Lab for the first
time, I tripped over a
discarded bicycle wheel
resting on a deflated soccer ball. How
scientific, I thought. To my right in a
dimly lit room no bigger than a walk-in
closet sat about a dozen fish tanks with
4-inch knife fish swimming aimlessly in
circles. To my left, a robotic arm, about
a yard in length, clutched a translucent
pipe just above a rectangular Plexiglas
pool of water. In front of me, wires
snaked over desks and several
oscilloscopes – tools that measure
voltage – squatted in corners.
I had heard the researchers at this
lab were working on a “robofish,” which
led me to imagine a huge pool of water
with some clanking metal creature
swimming around, or Deep Blue Sea, in
which Samuel L. Jackson gets destroyed
by a highly intelligent, automaton-like
shark. So a few 25-gallon tanks, fish no
longer than pencils and one robotic
arm was quite underwhelming. But as
Oscar Curet, a Ph.D. student, filled me
in on the research and showed me a
few demonstrations, I forgot all about
Samuel L’s mutilated body.
Researchers at the lab are mapping
out the nervous systems of knife fish,
also known as weakly electrical fish,
20 January 2009
while simultaneously building a highly
maneuverable aquatic robot. The goal
is to eventually create an artificial
perception system, modeled after the
knife fish, for the robot.
electric senses
Knife fish emit a small electric field
around their bodies that acts as a
sensory perception device. The electric
field serves as a survival, hunting and
navigation mechanism, allowing the
fish to sense objects in all directions.
To demonstrate this, Curet rigged up a
small radio device with red and white
cables hooked into it – similar to the
cables I used to plug my Nintendo
into my mom’s VCR back in the day. He
dipped the colored ends into the water
so we could hear them interfere with
the fish’s electric field. It sounded like
a car radio that couldn’t pick up any around them is a major part of the
stations, with intermittent static and a study. Malcolm MacIver, Ph.D., head of
piercing squeal. As he moved the wires research at the lab, says knife fish are
into the fish’s electric field, the graceful ideal subjects because their nervous
coward glided forward or backward – systems are considered “mid-range” in
whichever direction was farthest away terms of complexity, whereas humans
from the cables. are sitting top rung on the brain
Understanding how knife fish use complexity ladder.
their electric field to sense objects MacIver says many aspects of the
knife fish’s nervous system are identical
to ours. Understanding it will give
researchers a better glimpse of how the
human brain operates. “How you move
your arms, how you move limbs, how
pHOTO Courtesy of Solomon Lieberman
you move your body. There are a lot of
mysteries in terms of what the circuit
mechanisms are,” says MacIver.
robofuture
Enough about nervous systems, I
hear you moan. What about robofish?
That’s where Curet comes in. He is an
engineering and physics man and is
working on making sure the robofish
is just as responsive as the real deal
would be in its native Amazon. An
expert in fluid dynamics, Curet casually
spewed out terms like “vortexes” and
“flow-structure,” while I stared at him
like a confused golden retriever. In an
attempt to appear legitimate, I glanced
over some of the equations on his desk,
but couldn’t recognize a single symbol.
No addition signs, no subtraction signs,
not even a division symbol.
Assigning artificial perception
systems to complex robotic structures
will lead to the development of super
advanced, highly maneuverable
underwater vehicles. MacIver says
the vehicles could one day be used to
monitor the health of coral reefs and
LEFT: Knife fish,
which look like
small eels, hang
out in PVC piping in
their MacIver Lab
tanks. OPPOSITE
PAGE: Ph.D. student
pHOTO BY Gabrielle Tompkins
Oscar Curet works
with an oscilloscope
to determine the
strength of certain
electric currents.
possibly aid in underwater search and
rescue operations.
And having an understanding of
electro-sensory capabilities – how the
fish detects objects with its electric
field – could lead to the development
of artificial perception devices for
the blind. “You could have some low-
power emitters, possibly part of a blind
person’s clothing, that emit a weak
electric field and indicate that you’re
getting close to an object you are going
to hit,” says MacIver.
While MacIver and his colleagues are
breaking new ground, a vast amount of
information remains unknown. At this
point, the robofish is little more than
a ribbed piece of latex attached to a
metal arm. It seems there is a long way
to go before scientists catch up with my
Hollywood-induced fantasies.
SciQmagazine dot com 21