The RoboTuna is a robotic fish project involving a series of robotic fish designed and built by a team of scientists at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...
(MIT) in the US.
The Project
The project started in 1993. Their aim was to investigate the possibility of constructing a robotic submarine that could reproduce the way tunas swim and see if they could find a superior system of propulsion for the
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles
In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy is the capacity to make an informed, uncoerced decision. Autonomous organizations or institutions are independent or self-governing. Autonomy can also be defi ...
(AUVs).
Their experiment was a success as they discovered that their fish was both more maneuverable and used less energy than other robotic submarines. The Science Museum in London, UK has one on display in their geophysics and oceanography section .
Improvements
While the early results were successful, the RoboTuna was not able to replicate the bursts of acceleration that real tuna were able to manage. Researchers improved the design using a
genetic algorithm
In computer science and operations research, a genetic algorithm (GA) is a metaheuristic inspired by the process of natural selection that belongs to the larger class of evolutionary algorithms (EA). Genetic algorithms are commonly used to g ...
, in which the best systems will "get to have virtual offspring", according to researcher David Barrett.
Early incarnations worked poorly but as the system evolved, the RoboTuna's abilities improved. Visualization techniques showed that the system had evolved so that the RoboTuna was taking advantage of vortices that it created. A swish of its tail one way created a vortex, which was then used by a swish the other way - propelling it off the vortex it had created. This technique not only helps to with normal swimming but explains the impressive standing start speeds of real tuna.
The Researchers
The team involved in the project included:
Michael Triantafyllou Michael Triantafyllou is Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Director of the Center for Ocean Engineering, Head of the Area of Ocean Science and Engineering, and Director of the Testing Tank and ...
, David Barrett who built the first RoboTuna (Charlie I) in 1995 for his PhD thesis, and David Beal and Michael Sachinis, who introduced several modifications including a
cable-pulley system to produce RoboTuna II.
See also
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Tunabot
References
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Electromechanical engineering
Robotic animals
Robots of the United States
1995 robots
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Underwater robots
Tuna