An edible robot built by EPFL scientists in Switzerland uses a combination of biodegradable fuel and surface tension to move across the surface of water. It offers a safe and nutritious alternative
An edible robot built by EPFL scientists in Switzerland uses a combination of biodegradable fuel and surface tension to move across the surface of water. It offers a safe and nutritious alternative to environmental sensors made from artificial polymers and electronics.
The EPFL team plans to deploy the robots in large numbers. Each device would be equipped with biodegradable sensors to collect environmental data such as water pH, temperature, pollutants and the presence of microorganisms, which could be read after collection or via remote sensing.
The work is the latest innovation in the burgeoning field of edible robotics and robotic feeding. The Intelligent Systems Laboratory has previously published several papers on edible devices, including edible soft actuators as food and pet food manipulators, edible control circuits and edible conductive ink for crop growth monitoring.
“Although the development of miniature swimming robots for natural environments has progressed rapidly, they are typically made from plastics and include batteries and other electronic components. This poses challenges for large-scale deployment in sensitive ecosystems,” explains Shuhang Zhang, a doctoral student at EPFL. “In this work, we show how these materials can be replaced with fully biodegradable and edible components.”
The boat-shaped robot takes advantage of
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