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Soft to touch and just 1.3 centimetres (0.5 inch) in size, these
robots already suck up microplastics in shallow water.
The team aims to enable them to collect microplastics in deeper
water and provide information to analyse marine pollution in
real time, said Wang Yuyan, one of the researchers who developed
the robot.
"We developed such a lightweight miniaturised robot. It can be
used in many ways, for example in biomedical or hazardous
operations, such a small robot that can be localised to a part
of your body to help you eliminate some disease."
The black robot fish is irradiated by a light, helping it to
flap its fins and wiggle its body. Scientists can control the
fish using the light to avoid it crashing into other fish or
ships.
If it is accidentally eaten by other fish, it can be digested
without harm as it is made from polyurethane, which is also
biocompatible, Wang said.
The fish is able to absorb pollutants and recover itself even
when it is damaged. It can swim up to 2.76 body lengths per
second, faster than most artificial soft robots.
"We are mostly working on collection (of microplastics). It is
like a sampling robot and it can be used repeatedly," she said.
(Reporting by Xiaoyu Yin and Mark Chisholm, writing by Farah
Master; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
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