About 400 kilometers from the nearest sea, engineering students at ETH Zurich in Switzerland are hard at work on cutting-edge robots that can change the way world’s oceans are studied .
Eve the robotic fish sways her silicone tail from side to side, powered by pumps hidden inside her, as she glides smoothly through the cold waters of Lake Zurich, where she is being tested by Surf-eDNA. This group of students has spent the past two years building a school of soft robotic fish, of which Eve is the latest.
“By making Eve look like a fish, we are able to be minimally invasive in the ecosystem we are researching,” Dennis Baumann, a master’s student, told CNN . According to him, the biomimetic design should prevent other fish or marine life from being scared by its presence. “We can blend in and interact with the ecosystem,” he added.
Eve’s ability to camouflage itself as a fish isn’t its only utility. The autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is also equipped with a camera to film underwater and sonar, which, when combined with an algorithm, allows it to avoid obstacles.
The AUV also has a filter to collect environmental DNA, known as “eDNA,” as it swims. The collected particles can be sent to a lab for sequencing to determine what species inhabit the body of water.
“All animals that are in the environment release their DNA, so there are genes floating around that we can find,” Martina Lüthi, a postdoctoral fellow at ETH Zurich, told CNN .
The students hope that Eve can provide scientists with a more detailed picture of the oceans and their inhabitants. Despite covering more than 70 percent of our planet, much of what lies beneath the surface remains a mystery.
Tools like AUVs and remotely operated vehicles are increasingly being used to explore the ocean and learn more about underwater habitats. California-based startup Aquaai, for example, has developed drones that resemble clownfish and can collect information like oxygen levels, salinity and pH in waterways. Last year, a rover captured footage of the fish filmed at the deepest depth ever recorded, at 27,000 feet (8,300 meters).
The use of eDNA to monitor biodiversity is growing, but collection can still be rudimentary — some scientists still collect it by scooping water into a cup while leaning over the edge of a boat.
More advanced tools that can study environments in greater detail could be vital to better protecting Earth’s oceans at a time when ocean habitats face unprecedented threats from climate change, overfishing and other human activities.
“We want to build a reliable tool for biologists,” Baumann said, adding that he hopes they can one day expand their technology so that it is accessible to any scientist who wants to use it. “Maybe we can prevent species from becoming endangered or going extinct.”
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Source: CNN Brasil
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