How 'Mantabot' Robot Fish Could Help Navy Missions

A swimming robot shaped like a ray fish could do military scouting or scientific surveys.

Credit: University of Virginia

Holy robot fish, Batman! A swimming "Mantabot" drone funded by the U.S. Navy could give even the Dark Knight his first experience of gadget envy.

Mantabot has a plastic body and silicone fins modeled directly on the cow-nosed ray — a cousin of manta rays and stingrays in the "batoid" ray fish family. Smaller or larger versions of the robot could swim effortlessly through the oceans as they run U.S. military reconnaissance missions or conduct scientific surveys of the underwater world.

"We are studying a creature to understand how it is able to swim so beautifully, and we are hoping to improve upon it," said Hilary Bart-Smith, a mechanical and aerospace engineer at the University of Virginia. "We are learning from nature, but we also are innovating; trying to move beyond emulation."

Bart-Smith's lab built the robot to mimic the nearly silent flaps of a ray's winglike fins as it swims or glides through the water. They first began by studying living rays in the ocean and in the lab, as well as dissecting dead specimens to understand how nature engineered their bodies.

Such rays can accelerate or hold position while using relatively little energy — an inspiration for making underwater drones that can stay out at sea for long periods without refueling or recharging.

Researchers built Mantabot's flexible silicone wings so that they are able to change shape during swimming sessions by expanding or retracting rods and cables. The robot's plastic body holds the main electronics and battery.

Mantabot could lead to bigger or smaller underwater drones capable of carrying equipment for military or commercial purposes. It could also help monitor water conditions and marine life, or even investigate oil spills or track ocean pollutants.

The wide array of possibilities shows up in Mantabot's diverse funding sources — the Office of Naval Research, the National Science Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The research team hails from the University of Virginia, Princeton University, the University of California-Los Angeles and West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

As a bonus, Mantabot's "bio-inspired" shape makes it fit in easily with other ocean creatures without unnatural disturbances. But the bio-mimicry may cut both ways if hammerhead or bull sharks mistake Mantabot for a real-life meal.

Still, the possibility of military robots becoming shark food has not stopped the Office of Naval Research from funding other naturally shaped underwater drones such as robot jellyfish.

Beetles' Sticky Feet Lay Groundwork for Undersea Robots

A ladybug walks underwater up a wall. Its sticky feet have inspired an artificial version that could help underwater robots.

Credit: Japan's National Institute for Materials Science

Tomorrow's robots could climb up submerged walls in the manner of an underwater Spider-Man by using a gripper design found in beetles.

A number of beetle species can walk straight up smooth, dry plant leaves due to sticky adhesive-covered hair-like structures known as setae at the tips of their legs. Researchers analyzing ladybugs and a leaf beetle (Gastrophysa viridula) unexpectedly discovered that those insects also could use these setae to walk underwater.

To better understand how, scientists let specimens walk down sticks into trays of water. The researchers saw air bubbles trapped between the beetles' setae — bubbles that helped keep the adhesive-covered setae dry and sticky.

The investigators designed an artificial material that mimicked these beetle grippers — a silicone rubber pad covered with silicone rubber bristles about one-tenth of an inch high (2.4 millimeters), with tips about one-hundredth of an inch wide (0.2 mm). They used these pads to stick a plastic toy bulldozer onto the side of a wall underwater.

Even when these artificial grippers were not covered with glue, they were sticky underwater. The air bubbles themselves acted as an adhesive through capillary action, the same phenomenon by which liquids flow up paper towels.

This research could lead to "the application of adhesive devices for robots in the future," researcher Naoe Hosoda of Japan's National Institute for Material Science told InnovationNewsDaily.

DIY gene editing using automated lab robot

WASHINGTON: As a teenager, Keoni Gandall already was operating a cutting-edge research laboratory in his bedroom in Huntington Beach, California. While his friends were buying video games, he acquired more than a dozen pieces of equipment — a trans-illuminator, a centrifuge, two thermo-cyclers — in pursuit of a hobby that once was the province of white-coated PhDs in institutional labs. 

“I just wanted to clone DNA using my automated lab robot and feasibly make full genomes at home,” he said. Gandall was far from alone. In the past few years, so-called biohackers across the country have taken gene editing into their own hands. As the equipment becomes cheaper and the expertise in gene-editing techniques, mostly Crispr-Cas9, more widely shared, citizen scientists are attempting to reengineer DNA in surprising ways. 

Until now, the work has amounted to little more than D.I.Y. misfires. A year ago, a biohacker injected himself at a conference with modified DNA that he hoped would make him more muscular. (It did not.) Earlier this year in Austin, a biotech executive injected himself with what he hoped would be a herpes treatment. (Verdict: No.) 
His company already had live-streamed a man injecting himself with a home-brewed treatment for HIV (His viral load increased.) Gandall, now 18 and a research fellow at Stanford, said he only wants to ensure open access to gene-editing technology, believing future biotech discoveries may come from the least expected minds. But he is quick to acknowledge that the do-it-yourself genetics revolution one day may go catastrophically wrong. “Even I would tell you, the level of DNA synthesis regulation, it simply isn’t good enough,” Gandall said. “These regulations aren’t going to work when everything is decentralised — when everybody has a DNA synthesizer on their smartphone.”