Good idea?
It's nice not to scare the fish and all... but aren't they asking for their £20,000 gear to be chomped by a shark (or other underwater predator)?
Robo-fish to hunt pollution in Spanish seas
Scientists in the UK plan to release a school of autonomous robotic fish into the sea off northern Spain to help detect for hazardous pollutants in the water. The robots are designed to look like carp and swim like real fish so they won't scare the local meat-based wildlife while patrolling the port of Gijon. Each robo-carp …
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Excuse my ignorance of european waters
but do you not have large predatory sharks that could mistake these robofish for food?
With almost weekly attacks by great whites, tiger sharks, bull sharks, crocs etc, robofish like these wouldn't last long in Australian waters.
I for one
welcome our robotic carp overloards.
Seriously however, how long before a shark mistakes it for food?
Will they respond to fishermen? Will there be contests to see who catches the biggest robo-fish?
Will we one day have robo-whales?
Hmm robo whales, add viewports and compartments and you have a new travel industry.
If it looks like a fish, and swims like a fish...
how long before the researchers discover that their £20,000 toy has been eaten by a shark (laser headgear optional) or other predator?
Mine's the one with the greasy newspaper of chips in the pocket...
Yum Yum
I wonder how long it will take for them to be gobbled up by a bigger fish
One hundred thousand quid?
Just for the swimming hardware? Plus the cost of the "docking stations" (to coin a phrase) and attendant bits & pieces & software? And more in support costs? Plus the cost of the human element? And a holiday in Spain, to boot?
Hell, I'll do it for half of whatever the total works out to be, using off the shelf parts!
if the fish is in the net ...
... can the fisher men claim 2000 Pound for finding and returning it?
Cod almighty
Honestly, you'd think they'd have better things to do, spending scads of money on this sort of project, probably just to become a dab hand at some new embedded processor the prof fancied the look of. Of course, if they can tuna the software and hardware by spending a few squid I suppose it might work.
It's not my plaice to pout I suppose as most students just flounder around listening to bass tracks or sole music and it's nice to see students with a worthy porpoise but you have to wonder what sort of pollacks they will publish in their paper.
Anonymous, would you put your name to that array of awful piscine puns (I resisted working in hard of herring, damn, no I didn't!)?
Paris, nice kipper.
Oh, how do you stun an octopus?
Kick it in the tentacles!
Am I the only one now hearing nothing but
the Stingray theme tune?
Pretty cool, but I wonder...
Given that (I assume) they'll have to plug them in to recharge them, why do the data transfer by WiFi?
Sharks
"Om nom nom nom BLEARGH! Jesus, Bob, forget these things. They're carp!"
Sharks (of which there are many hanging about Biscay looking for the electrical signature of something slow to munch on) can't spell and that's £20,000 down the drain. Never mind ROTM, more like a line of angry sharks suing for Li-Ion burns and false advertising.
Great whites with tummy ache?
I wonder if it will give bigger predators a bit of a tummy ache?
Why is it...
that when I hear the words "hundreds of millions of years' worth of evolution" I imagine them being spoken in the voice of Sam Neill?
Robo-carp?
I see El Reg's pun development department isn't flounder-ing; it's stilled perch-ed at the top of the pile, wrass-ling humour from the most unlikely sources...
Mine's the one with the trout in its pocket...
Anyone ever heard of Sharks?
About the size of a seal, but looks like a fish. Sounds like the perfect meal for a hungry shark to me... Who wants to place bets on how long before the first one gets eaten?
Make it green
Shame they didn't paint it green with a pearlescent white eye, because then it look like a seal sized terror fish, Perfect for shooting down with a seal sized Stingray and a Troy Tempest puppet
Terror Fish?
Stand by for action! We are about to launch Stingray. Anything can happen in the next half hour!
Bedtime Stories
I'm willing to hazard a guess that the developers of this robofish have small children. The similarity to Marcus Pfister's "The Rainbow Fish" is remarkable.
Slight Problem
Isn't a 1.5m long carp going to look pretty appetising to whatever it is that eats carp in the local area? Seems quite expensive to end up as shark food.
Stand by for Action!
Let's hope the plucky Spaniards haven't seen Stingray, otherwise they may spot our fish-borne reptilian invasion fleet for what it is!
Altogether now...
STINGRAAYYYYY-STINGRAY!! Dadalada-da-da!!
stingray
every time i see this 'fish' it reminds me of the evil guys submarine in stingray
oooh, pretty
They're lovely, the movement is especially great. I heartily approve of making more of these things for any reason whatsoever.
Do they count towards trawler quotas then?
8 hours...
and the charge time is...
so in reality there will only be a lot less fish actually swimming..
1.5 m fishes.. thats pretty big!
So they are going to live within a 4mile radius of a port... Do they have propellor avoidance systems??
Predation...
Won't predation be a problem? If it looks like a fish and swims like a fish how many robo-fish are going to be lost to hungry real-fish?
That's the PR anyway.
Actually these contain a small, but powerful explosive charge and can spot a Spanish trawler full of illegally caught British fish at 2km..........
(Daily Mail articles can be recycled as humour. Who knew?)
@'What bait would the local anglers use?'
D-cell batteries I'm guessing.
I can hear it now
Lookie here, maw. I done fished me up this here metal fish. it's a bigg'n. Sure hope it tastes as good as it looks.
robot fish
I'd be more worried about the Spaniards than the sharks. I suspect they'll all end up
on restaurant tables. They don't mind thir seafood crunchy.
Escorts Needed
They will need armed escort and support fish obviously.
revenge!
for all the fish the spanish take from British waters (allegedly), I hope they can they cut through nets as well.
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