Maurizio Porfiri, assistant director of mechanical engineering at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, has made an invention that can possibly preserve and protect marine life from disasters like oil or chemical spills.
After studying the behaviours of schooling fish, he has managed to find out how the schooling fish recognise and follow a leader. By coupling his observations together with his invention, robotic fish, he is positive that he can enforce leadership by an external member, and thus influence the direction and behaviour of schooling fish. With this, he is then able to effectively save the lives of fishes, by directing them away from dangerous areas that might potentially cause their deaths.
The first generation of robotic fishes are only able to swim along a plane, but future generations of robotic fishes will be able to dive and surface, further resembling a real fish. Maurizio Porfiri has already started testing out his robotic fishes on groups of gregarious fish, and together with his team, has noted a variety of interaction patterns.
After reading this article, I feel that the robotic fishes have a lot of potential. They can be used for many purposes, such as saving the lives of marine lives. This could help endangered species of marine life, as by directing the fishes away from oil/chemical spills or manmade hazards like turbines of ships, the loss of those precious marine lives can be stopped. The fishes can also be used to teach students about fishes, and show them how the different fin sizes and shapes of the fish affect their swimming performances during test runs.
However, some bad points of these robotic fishes are that there is always the possibility of error which might cause the aquatic life to actually enter the dangerous zones. Also, having the power to control the movements of fishes might be bad for the fishes, as the fishes might actually lose their natural ability to survive and adapt to new surroundings.
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