Ecobot Eats Dead Flies for Fuel

sintekk · Post by **sintekk** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 3:08 pm

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,128...html?tw=rss.TOP

Researchers at the University of the West of England, Bristol, are working on creating autonomous robots that power themselves using substances found in the environment. Professors Chris Melhuish and John Greenman plan to give robots their very own guts -- artificial digestive systems and the corresponding metabolisms that will allow robots to digest food.

University of the West of England’s Ecobot II uses a microbial fuel cell as its only power source. The fuel cell uses microbes to extract electricity directly from food.

Doing away with solar cells and batteries, their robot Ecobot II has a stomach consisting of eight microbial fuel cells, or MFCs, that contain bacteria harvested from sewage sludge. The microbes break down the food into sugars, converting biochemical energy into electricity that powers the robot. With bacteria breaking the food down and a type of robotic "respiration" in which air provides oxygen to the fuel cells to create useful energy, the whole system mimics real digestion as closely as possible.

Currently being fed a diet of dead flies and rotten apples, the robot isn't one for speed, though. Ecobot II can crawl along at a top speed of about 2 to 4 centimeters every 15 minutes, fueled by eight flies that are fed directly into the MFCs.

Cool!

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MrSelf · Post by **MrSelf** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 3:20 pm

Cool!

That's crazy, behold the rise of the machine!

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sintekk · Post by **sintekk** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 3:22 pm

Lotsa good news for cool tech today

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MrSelf · Post by **MrSelf** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 3:47 pm

Yeah, and I hadn't heard about this one, this is brand new to me.

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 4:45 pm

Woah cool stuff. Now we need to make humans powered by solar energy.

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MrSelf · Post by **MrSelf** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 5:00 pm

Well, technically, we partially are, we do absorb sunlight as heat and transfer that into energy, just not enought to survive on if that were our only means of energy intake.

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