Futurists have projected that over one trillion autonomous nodes will be integrated into human activities by 2035, becoming a part of the Internet of Things. These nodes, embedded in various objects, will transmit information to central databases autonomously, without human intervention.
However, this integration poses significant challenges, particularly considering that 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered in water. Aquatic environments present unique environmental and logistical hurdles.
In response to these challenges, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initiated the Ocean of Things programme.
Innovating in aquatic robotics
At the forefront of addressing these aquatic challenges is Binghamton University, where Professor Seokheun ‘Sean’ Choi, along with Anwar Elhadad, PhD ’24, and PhD student Yang ‘Lexi’ Gao, has developed a self-powered ‘bug’ capable of skimming across water. This innovation could potentially transform aquatic robotics.
Over the past decade, Professor Choi, a faculty member at the Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and director of the Centre for Research in Advanced Sensing Technologies and Environmental Sustainability (CREATES), has secured research funding from the Office of Naval Research. This funding has supported the development of bacteria-powered biobatteries with an impressive potential 100-year shelf life.
Harnessing bacteria for power
The aquatic robots designed by Choi’s team utilise similar biobattery technology, chosen for its reliability in adverse conditions compared to solar, kinetic, or thermal energy systems. The robots feature a Janus interface, which is hydrophilic on one side and hydrophobic on the other. This interface allows the device to absorb nutrients from the water and retain them, fuelling bacterial spore production.
“When the environment is favourable for the bacteria, they become vegetative cells and generate power,” Choi explained. “But when the conditions are not favourable – for example, it’s really cold or the nutrients are not available – they go back to spores. In that way, we can extend the operational life.”
Promising results and future directions
Research by the Binghamton team has demonstrated power generation close to 1 milliwatt. This power level is sufficient to operate the robot’s mechanical movement and any sensors that could monitor environmental data, such as water temperature, pollution levels, the movements of commercial vessels and aircraft, and the behaviours of aquatic animals.
The mobility of these robots represents a significant improvement over current ‘smart floats’, which are stationary sensors anchored in one place.
The next phase for these aquatic robots involves testing different bacteria to determine which are most effective at producing energy in the ocean’s stressful conditions.
“We used very common bacterial cells, but we need to study further to know what is actually living in those areas of the ocean,” Choi noted. “Previously, we demonstrated that the combination of multiple bacterial cells can improve sustainability and power, so that’s another idea. Maybe using machine learning, we can find the optimal combination of bacterial species to improve power density and sustainability.”
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