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back to article Boffins birth man-sized military ROBOT JELLYFISH

A team of robotics researchers at Virginia Tech (VT) are using a university swimming pool to show off their latest creation, an autonomous robotic jellyfish developed for the US Navy that's capable of swimming a payload of technology into position off enemy shores. Dubbed Cryo, the jumbo jellyfish weighs 170lb (77 kg) and …

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  1. Voland's right hand Silver badge
    Devil

    It is scary week all right

    First the "fishnet stealth", now this. The most interesting thing about jellyfish propulsion is that it has the potential of being absolutely silent. If this is built, anything inside an enemy harbor becomes a target that is impossible to defend.

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    1. JassMan
      Reply Icon

      Re: It is scary week all right

      but not as scary as meeting a box jellyfish which although smaller can pack as much punch as a shark armed with a laser.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chironex_fleckeri

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      1. Alan Brown Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: It is scary week all right

        As my mother's dogs discovered the hard way, running over a dead and drying box jellyfish in bare feet can still feel like being lazed by an unfriendly shark.

        I wonder if cryo will still have any zap when he goes flat.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    > extracting power from the hydrogen and oxygen in the water that surrounds it

    Something surely missing - in H2O the elements are already snuggled into a devoted embrace and it takes a whump of power to shift them from that. And there's sod-all molecular H2 available in normal seawater: concentrations of a few nM - somewhat higher than atmospheric levels in tropical surface water but still far too low to provide useful power.

    Of course if they do have such a philosopher's stone handy then I imagine they'll soon stop mucking around with robo jellies and move on to maniacal laughter and world domination.

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    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: > extracting power from the hydrogen and oxygen in the water that surrounds it

      Yes, clearly this bit of the article is absolute rubbish. I have no idea what Thomson meant by it. I tried to track down another source in the hope of clarifying what the folks at VT might actually have said, but couldn't find one that mentioned anything about plans for powering the silicone beastie.

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  3. Arachnoid

    They should make them nueclear and have done with it,both power and explosive all in one squidbiggy package

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    pop quiz

    What lives in the ocean and sometimes eats jellyfish ?

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    1. Don Jefe
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Re: pop quiz

      Australians!

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    2. h 6
      Reply Icon

      Re: pop quiz

      W-w-w-wood?!

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    3. Voland's right hand Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Devil

      Re: pop quiz

      Used to be sunfish. I thought we transformed most of them into sushi by now so at least as far as Mediterranean is concerned it is "lived in the ocean".

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    4. bag o' spanners
      Reply Icon

      Re: pop quiz

      Large cetacians?

      Squidzilla?

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  5. Homer 1
    Paris Hilton

    Great ... for five minutes

    Until the battery runs out.

    Doh!

    Now, if they could make a nuclear powered robot jellyfish...

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    1. M Gale
      Reply Icon

      Re: Great ... for five minutes

      Uhm, just as a quick back-of-a-brainpad idea..

      Robot floats to surface. Wave motion causes it to flop about. The motor acts like a generator to turn flopping into that magic elastic trickery stuff.

      Boom, self-charging jellyspies.

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    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Coat

      Re: Great ... for five minutes

      "Now, if they could make a nuclear powered robot jellyfish..."

      ...Yeah! With frikkin' lasers on it's....oh....wait...

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    3. The_Regulator
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      Great until Iran catches it and copies

      Then we will not only need to worry about the frickin sharks with the frickin laser beams, the killer dolphins with explosives that escaped while horny a few months back but also the terrorist jelly fish pre-programmed to kill all infidels powered by a nuke!!!

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  6. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Coat

    "their very simplicity allows them to survive in almost any environment and to use what little energy they can muster in the most efficient way possible"

    This is what greens want humans to become!

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Genius at work

    All that engineering know-how, and they didn't think that having scuba gear during the test phase in the pool might be useful ? Not even a snorkel ?

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  8. Greg D
    Coat

    I for one...

    ...welcome our robotic jellyfish overlords!

    Well someone had to do it!

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  9. mark 63 Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Perpetual motion?

    " completely autonomous by extracting power from the hydrogen and oxygen in the water that surrounds it"

    Well if thats possible, why the hell arent we doing that for all our power needs?

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