Written by Yonje R. (KIS'19)
Edited by Jaemin Y. (KIS'19)
━━ August 1st, 2018 ━━
AI Underwater
It is pretty clear how evolved our society has become with technology today, whether it was from the introduction of the iPhone to the invention of electric cars to AI—artificial intelligence. Today, artificial intelligence is weaving its way into the daily lives of individuals across the world, becoming a crucial addition to their quotidian lives. With its easy accessibility and a wide range of utilities, artificial intelligence has truly begun to shape the path of future technological advances in our modern society today. First discovered in 1943 by the famous McCulloch and Pitts’ design of “artificial neurons,” AI was a scientific field researched by many scientists and researchers across the world, ranging from MIT students to professional scientists at governmental laboratories. By 1980, AI became a booming success, stimulating the knowledge of professionals and attaining a profit of over a billion dollars. Even today, in the 21st century, despite the long way AI still has to go, it is extremely prominent in technological gadgets all across the world. Among all, however, was one invention that comprised the essence of AI in a creative yet educative manner: SoFi. A recently impressive incorporation of AI, SoFi, a hypnotic machine that thrives underwater, was developed and created by researchers and scientists at MIT, who claim that SoFi is the “world’s strangest fish”. With a principal goal of overcoming communication barriers that other oceanic robots and machines currently face, SoFi claims to a powerful tool, mesmerizing and aiding scientists who strive to study the ocean life. With this new creation, AI, as well as SoFi, have good chances of covering all surfaces effectively across the world, both land and water.
Recently introduced into both the scientific and technological fields of education, SoFi, a hypnotic machine, has rapidly made progress by helping scientists attain a more accurate perspective on the different layers of the bodies of water. Many have described its characteristics as a real fish, ducking above and below reefs (with an inside of electronics instead of flesh), along with its flexible tail swaying back and forth casually (with an elastomer — a synthetic polymer with a rubber-like material — instead of muscles and scales). In hopes of battling one of many commonly unsolvable problems that many professionals have recently faced, SoFi has finally been the first underwater, oceanic machine to overcome this obstacle: communication. Up until SoFi was created, communication underwater was always strapped against a boat or ship on a surface level, due to the poor connection of radio waves below surface, which in fact, only worked a couple centimeters below the water surface. Differently, SoFi has opted to incorporate sound, as acoustic signals have been proven to work travel much farther below the water surface while using a significantly less amount of energy. Through trials and experiments, researchers at MIT were able to notice that the incorporation of sound enabled them to maneuver their robot more than 70 feet away from the surface.
In addition to conquering the issue with radio waves, SoFi has also been highly effective at getting rid of a mechanical problem: the heavy, clunky material normal water machines were fabricated from. Often equipped with the classical electric motors, standard underwater machine and operators have been known to be extremely clunky and stuttery, making a great deal of noise underwater, which can often scare away the living organisms in large bodies of water. Pertaining to a different class of technology called the “soft robots,” SoFi is one of several machines that are much more softer, depending on air and/or oil to travel and glide across the water. The discovery of the “soft robots” came along with the discovery of SoFi, a different class of machines that require much more attention and care when being built. The reason for which SoFi has been prone to the high level of technology is due to its mechanical composition, two hollow chambers consisting of actively pumped water that cycles back and forth through the fish. With the water that is constantly being cycled, this induces the natural wiggling of the tail, allowing it to camouflage itself inherently with the other fish, unlike many of the other jet-powered machines, that spook away the fish instantly.
Finally, SoFi is comprised of one more element that allows them to swim farther below the surface of the water, the swim bladder. A gas-filled organ that enables them to achieve their customary buoyancy, the swim bladder is constructed by a cylinder that continuously compresses and decompresses the air through a thin piston. Furthermore, the swim bladders that SoFi carry are far more enriched and detailed than the regular ones in a sense that they are not all airy chambers but are instead airtight compartments filled with oil, permitting them to keep their internal structure and reaching deep depths of water while retaining their internal pressure. The oil not only fills the space in the compartment, but also allows an immiscible solution to mix with the water, gliding smoothly as the nonpolar molecules (oil) and the polar molecules (water) brush off each other, evidently enabling the fish to swim fluidly through the water.
What researchers at MIT have discovered is truly fascinating and eye-opening, as they have redefined the scientific incorporation of artificial intelligence. Their determination and perseverance to preserve the study of marine life have enabled them to build upon a once confirmed idea into a refreshingly new invention, one that has tackled more than one problem many researchers and scientists have attempted to resolve for numerous years. Despite this, however, SoFi is still is in its early stages. Having been developed quite recently, SoFi does come with its advantages as well as the further improvements that it could effectively benefit from. With SoFi being fresh into the industry of oceanic machines, researchers at MIT continue to tweak and fix its little mistakes, incessantly monitoring the health and conditions of large fish populations in increasingly unhealthy oceans.
━━━━━━━━
Bibliography:
Byrd, Deborah. “Watch a Robot Fish Swim in the Ocean.” EarthSky, 2 Apr. 2018
Greshko, Michael. “This Wiggly Fish Is the Most Advanced Robot of Its Kind.” National Geographic, National Geographic Society, 21 Mar. 2018
Kirkpatrick, Noel. “Meet SoFi, the Little Robot Fish That Could.” MNN - Mother Nature Network, Mother Nature Network, 25 Mar. 2018
Klein, Joanna. “Robotic Fish to Keep a Fishy Eye on the Health of the Oceans.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 Mar. 2018
Roston, Brittany A. “MIT SoFi Soft Robot Swims in the Ocean like a Real Fish.” SlashGear, 21 Mar. 2018
Simon, Matt. “This Robot Fish Is Here to Save The Oceans.” Wired, Conde Nast, 21 Mar. 2018
Pictures:
━━━━━━━━