Bionic AquaJelly Created to Help Industrial Autonomous Intelligent Systems
Festo, the German-headquartered supplier of automation technology, has joined forces with
German specialist display technology firm Effekt-Technik to create a bionic jellyfish - known as AquaJelly - as part of an ongoing research programme into advanced automation.
Festo believes by extending the principles of swarming behaviour to automation, many small autonomous or partly autonomous intelligent systems could work together to solve large-scale problems through strategic cooperation.
At the heart of AquaJelly is microprocessor-driven control board, sensors and LEDs. With its electronics on board, each AquaJelly is able to sense various aspects of its environment and to function completely autonomously, but also to communicate with the others, which then leads to them forming a group and even cooperating. The bionic jellyfish communicate to distances of around 80cm.
Each jellyfish decides its actions autonomously on the basis of the prevailing conditions - which for example can depend on the charge condition, the propulsion system's orientation or the proximity of another AquaJelly. Although the overall behaviour of a swarm of AquaJellies is emergent, i.e. arises without predetermined control, it results solely from a suitable choice of simple rules of behaviour for individual AquaJelly and represents a collective behaviour pattern that maximises the number of living jellyfish.
Each AquaJelly has a charging control unit, two lithium-ion polymer accumulator batteries and actuators for the swash plate. When an AquaJelly approaches a charging station located above the water surface, it is drawn towards it and supplied with electricity. An internal sensor system monitors its energy condition and a solenoid switch enables it to register the orientation of the propulsion system.
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