A series of articles on an eating, pooping robot.
Energy Autonomy: Ecobot - aka, a robot that eats (?! bad idea).
One goal of our work is to build energetically autonomous robots. For this, the Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) technology is employed to extract electrical energy from refined foods such as sugar and unrefined foods such as insects and fruit. This is achieved by extracting electrons from the microbial metabolic processes. To be truly autonomous, robots will be required to incorporate in their behavioural repertoire actions that involve searching, collecting and digesting food. The robot will be designed to remain inactive until sufficient energy has been generated to complete its next task. This may prove to be a paradigm shift in the way action selection mechanisms are designed - (Project code-name:‘EcoBot’).
So far, two such robots, namely EcoBot-I and EcoBot-II have been developed, which - to some extent - exhibit this type of behaviour. EcoBot-I, which was developed in 2002, employed E. coli and was fed with sugar and EcoBot-II, which was developed in 2004 used sludge microbes and was fed (amongst other substrates) with dead insects and food waste (watch video).
This project, using the same MFC technology, is also looking into underwater autonomy based on artificial gills for robots.
Of course, this means it also has to poop:
Biomass robot eats food, requires litter box
Researchers at the University of Bristol are hard at work designing robots that can draw power by digesting food. Their latest offering is Ecobot III, which feeds on processed sewage. This doesn't sound appetizing to me, however it is apparently just the thing that its 48 microbial food cells want to munch on. The microbes extract energy from the food by digesting it, and the robot extracts some of it by harvesting the electrons put off by the microbes. It was apparently able to extract enough energy from to move around and do its robot business, returning to feed and purge when necessary.
and
BREADBOT - EcoBot III.
EcoBot-III is shown inside an enclosed thermostatic arena (EcoWorld) and moves along a stainless steel track, between liquid food (wastewater - right-hand side wall) and water (tap water - left-hand side wall). The robot is powered by a stack of 48 Microbial Fuel Cells (terracotta coloured units half-way up the chassis), which receive fresh digested nutrients from the artificial stomach (conical structure underneath the yellow hat). Overflowing fluids from the MFCs are collected in a trough (bottom part of the chassis) and fed back into the artificial stomach for further utilisation. At the end of a complete cycle (approximately after 24 hours) a peristaltic pump evacuates the waste that has accumulated in the bottom of the conical artificial stomach.
The movie begins with the robot pumping fluid onboard from the artificial stomach down into the MFCs (the visible from the front pipes get filled-up with dark-coloured fluid).
Then the robot is moves towards the left side-wall where it makes contact with the arena water distribution mechanism and receives water into its collection tray (just below the MFCs). Once again, a demonstration of the onboard feeding takes place (dark fluid fills up the pipes).
Following this, the robot makes its way towards the right-hand side wall, where it makes contact with the liquid-food distribution mechanism and dark wastewater is pumped into the yellow hat.
After receiving its liquid food, the robot moves away from the feeding station and goes all the way towards the water distribution mechanism. Half-way between the middle and the left-hand side wall of the arena a liquid 'puddle' can be noticed on the floor inside the black tray, as a result of the daylight reflection. This is the semi-solid/liquid waste excreted by the robot as part of its sequence of actuations.
The robot then reaches the water distribution mechanism, where it receives fresh water, and once again the onboard feeding is demonstrated before the movie ends.
This same experiment has been carried out with pasteurised (synthetic) wastewater, (i.e. deprived of any microbes) as well as with decomposed-in-sludge fly-juice, with equal success. As can be seen the time between actuations varies between 40-60 minutes, and the robot has operated continuously in this mode for 7 days. The reason it stopped working after the 7th day, was due to mechanical failures of pumps.
The scientific paper reporting on this work will appear in the proceedings of the Alife-XII conference, to take place between the 19-23 of August 2010.
One goal of our work is to build energetically autonomous robots. For this, the Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) technology is employed to extract electrical energy from refined foods such as sugar and unrefined foods such as insects and fruit. This is achieved by extracting electrons from the microbial metabolic processes. To be truly autonomous, robots will be required to incorporate in their behavioural repertoire actions that involve searching, collecting and digesting food. The robot will be designed to remain inactive until sufficient energy has been generated to complete its next task. This may prove to be a paradigm shift in the way action selection mechanisms are designed - (Project code-name:‘EcoBot’).
So far, two such robots, namely EcoBot-I and EcoBot-II have been developed, which - to some extent - exhibit this type of behaviour. EcoBot-I, which was developed in 2002, employed E. coli and was fed with sugar and EcoBot-II, which was developed in 2004 used sludge microbes and was fed (amongst other substrates) with dead insects and food waste (watch video).
This project, using the same MFC technology, is also looking into underwater autonomy based on artificial gills for robots.
Of course, this means it also has to poop:
Biomass robot eats food, requires litter box
Researchers at the University of Bristol are hard at work designing robots that can draw power by digesting food. Their latest offering is Ecobot III, which feeds on processed sewage. This doesn't sound appetizing to me, however it is apparently just the thing that its 48 microbial food cells want to munch on. The microbes extract energy from the food by digesting it, and the robot extracts some of it by harvesting the electrons put off by the microbes. It was apparently able to extract enough energy from to move around and do its robot business, returning to feed and purge when necessary.
and
BREADBOT - EcoBot III.
EcoBot-III is shown inside an enclosed thermostatic arena (EcoWorld) and moves along a stainless steel track, between liquid food (wastewater - right-hand side wall) and water (tap water - left-hand side wall). The robot is powered by a stack of 48 Microbial Fuel Cells (terracotta coloured units half-way up the chassis), which receive fresh digested nutrients from the artificial stomach (conical structure underneath the yellow hat). Overflowing fluids from the MFCs are collected in a trough (bottom part of the chassis) and fed back into the artificial stomach for further utilisation. At the end of a complete cycle (approximately after 24 hours) a peristaltic pump evacuates the waste that has accumulated in the bottom of the conical artificial stomach.
The movie begins with the robot pumping fluid onboard from the artificial stomach down into the MFCs (the visible from the front pipes get filled-up with dark-coloured fluid).
Then the robot is moves towards the left side-wall where it makes contact with the arena water distribution mechanism and receives water into its collection tray (just below the MFCs). Once again, a demonstration of the onboard feeding takes place (dark fluid fills up the pipes).
Following this, the robot makes its way towards the right-hand side wall, where it makes contact with the liquid-food distribution mechanism and dark wastewater is pumped into the yellow hat.
After receiving its liquid food, the robot moves away from the feeding station and goes all the way towards the water distribution mechanism. Half-way between the middle and the left-hand side wall of the arena a liquid 'puddle' can be noticed on the floor inside the black tray, as a result of the daylight reflection. This is the semi-solid/liquid waste excreted by the robot as part of its sequence of actuations.
The robot then reaches the water distribution mechanism, where it receives fresh water, and once again the onboard feeding is demonstrated before the movie ends.
This same experiment has been carried out with pasteurised (synthetic) wastewater, (i.e. deprived of any microbes) as well as with decomposed-in-sludge fly-juice, with equal success. As can be seen the time between actuations varies between 40-60 minutes, and the robot has operated continuously in this mode for 7 days. The reason it stopped working after the 7th day, was due to mechanical failures of pumps.
The scientific paper reporting on this work will appear in the proceedings of the Alife-XII conference, to take place between the 19-23 of August 2010.