The translucent bell-shaped figure pumps rhythmically upward through the water, the rise and fall of its body almost identical to that of the moon jelly, Aurelia aurita. The similarity is no coincidence. The figure in the tank is a prototype of an unmanned undersea vehicle designed to run on hydrogen-powered artificial muscles. The wild A. aurita, because of its relatively simple musculature and swimming movements, was the ideal model for Robojelly’s design. The hydrogen-powered Robojelly was described in March in the journal Smart Materials and Structures by its creators, a team of scientists based at Virginia Tech and the University of Texas at Dallas. The vehicle’s design—nickel-titanium shape memory alloy wrapped in carbon nanotubes coated with a platinum catalyst, all tucked neatly under a silicone-based mesoglea—is truly unique in the world of robotics. In principle, Robojelly could swim indefinitely, its artificial muscles powered by heat produced from the reaction of platinum with the renewable resource of oxygen and hydrogen gas in water. (via Machine Counterpart: Nature’s New Creatures | Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network)
