Tiny Aircraft Feeds Itself With Dead Flies

An anonymous reader writes "The research team from southwest England have built a robot which can move and transmit sensor data over a radio link powered solely by unrefined food including dead flies and apples. The robot, known as Ecobot II, uses a Microbial Fuel Cell as its only power source. By "digesting" its own fuel, the aircraft could become autonomous and operate without the need for refueling, changing batteries or recharging from the mains. In the Microbial Fuel Cell microbes are used to extract electricity directly from food - in this case flies or apple." Several people noted this previous article on the same project.

Great Scott!

[andyrut]

This sounds just like Mr. Fusion [imdb.com]! Definitely more effective if you pour the beer out of the can and then toss in the container.

Re:Great Scott!

[PoopJuggler]

What a waste of beer. Is free unlimited clean energy really worth the price??

Re:Great Scott!

[Bastian]

On the other hand, if I could run my car off of the sludge of used grains left over after making the wort, I'd probably be making a lot more beer.

Re:Great Scott!

[lovebyte]

What a waste of beer.
No, it's ok. They use American beer.

Re:Great Scott!

[sczimme]

No, it's ok. They use American beer.

So it runs on water, then? Cool!

Re:Great Scott!

[saider]

I can see it now, the AI in the craft decides against the Miller back at the base and heads to the local bars for a black and tan. A recovery squad is promptly formed to drag the now uncoordinated bots back to work, where they are confined to the base perimeter and reprogrammed to work off of high calorie MREs. Accountants insist on purchasing expired MREs that are unfit for human consumption, but will work fine in the bots. Engineers find that higher than normal failure rates are attributed to the bots bei

Re:Great Scott!

[spitefulcrow]

American beer is similar to having sex in a canoe. It's fucking close to water.

Re:Great Scott!

[jellomizer]

Well the beer had more lighter elements in it then the tin can. So by poring the the beer in it first got the fusion chain reaction warm enough to handle the can.

I think I speak for us all when I say..

[modifried]

1.21 Gigawatts!?

Jigga-Watts

[kentyman]

I always found it strange that Doc Brown pronounced it the same way that Jay-Z would.

Re:Jigga-Watts

[WilliamGeorge]

Uh, look it up in a dictionary: he pronounced it right! Most people do not realize that the prefix "giga" in the English language should be pronounced "ji'ga" not "gi'ga" - at least, that is how it was until the prefix became popular with computer terms such as gigabyte and gigahertz. Now, both pronunciations are generally accepted. Wait... could that be Linguistic Darwinism???? ;)

Excellent use for...

[SunPin]

Soylent Green!

Soylent Green is people! PEOPLE!

Re:Excellent use for...

[PoopJuggler]

Soylent Brown-With-A-Slight-Hint-Of-Opalescent is flies! FLIES!

This is friggin excellent

[Perianwyr Stormcrow]

Now I can field an army of autonomous spybots to stalk celebrities without having to refuel them.

Re:This is friggin excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does celebrities need refueling?

Excellent news

[jayhawk88]

Now if we can only program it to find Sarah Conner.

Re:Excellent news

[digitalgiblet]

The only thing more frightening than a "terminator" robot that hunts you down and kills you is a termineater robot that hunts you down, kills you and then EATS you.

Re:Excellent news

[kin_korn_karn]

yeah, because if it eats you, you can't cast Raise Dead on the body

At what point..

[Renraku]

At what point do they decide that they want human flesh instead of flies/rotten apples?

Or better yet, at what point do they decide that they want to eat our crops instead of flies/rotten apples?

I, for one, welcome our new mechanical locust overlords.

Re:At what point..

[kaleco]

If that thing came after your flesh, I doubt you'd have much difficulty resisting it. It's a very strange brand of paranoia you've got there.

Re:At what point..

[OrangeTide]

They'd just do it while you're sleeping. Like vampire bats.

Re:At what point..

[AviLazar]

Man I go old school with my ancient magical katana blade in one hand - and my .50 cal desert eagle long barral in the next. (laser sight included)

Re:At what point..

[Anonym0us Cow Herd]

At what point do these things get out of control and destroy all flies and apples?

Step 2

[Karpe]

Make this little robot build copies of itself, from raw materials it collets.

Re:Step 3

[JDevers]

Give robot the ability to manipulate it's offspring's hardware.

Re:Step 4

[jusdisgi]

PROFIT!!!!

Step 5

[JDevers]

Watch as money gets worthless as tiny robots take over all niches on planet and eventually build a slave race of flies and fruit trees.

Brings a whole new meaning to "Lord of the Flies"...

Re:Step 5

[AviLazar]

And all humans are encased in little containers filled with pink embryonic goo so they can harvest the energy from their bodies. Then Neo can come and save us.

Re:Step 4

[DavidLeblond]

Get sued by Michael Crichton for stealing his idea. ;)

Re:Step 4

[GTRacer]

It wasn't much of an idea...that ending blew.

GTRacer
- zzz

Robotic incest?

[Serious Simon]

Give robot the ability to manipulate it's offspring's hardware.

...

Re:Robotic incest?

[JDevers]

Mexican border town geek sex shows ;)

Re:Step 2

[Mantorp]

You should read "Crabs on the Island" (1958) Anatoli Dneprov [davidpascal.com]

huh?

[bje2]

i don't get it...i read the article, and it says:

By "digesting" its own fuel, the aircraft could become autonomous and operate without the need for refuelling, changing batteries or recharging from the mains.

and

Like insects and birds, it is just possible that such micro aircraft might one day even be able to feed themselves. Researchers at the University of the West of England are creating a new breed of autonomous robot that will carry out specific tasks and even "feed" themselves while working.

ho

Re:huh?

[Enigma_Man]

It's just bad grammar. They mean you won't have to put gasoline or other common fuels in it. It uses plants and animal digestion as a fuel. Shouldn't that be obvious?

-Jesse

Re:huh?

[bje2]

no...because if your "fuel" is apples, then the you still need to sop occasionally an "re-feul" by loading up on some more apples...how is that autonomous?

Re:huh?

[Enigma_Man]

You posted it yourself in the quoted article text. Eventually it will gather its own apples and dead flies to refuel itself; hence autonomous.

-Jesse

Re:huh?

[shaitand]

If the unit which needs the fuel does the stopping and loading up, that unit is autonomous.

Re:huh?

[JDevers]

A better wording would be "become autonomous, in other words not need external assistance in refuelling"

Re:huh?

[fatmonkeyboy]

Given the context of the article, when they say "without the need for refuelling" they are referring to manual fueling by a cooperative human.

Your comment about perpetual motion machines misses the point entirely. New energy is added to the system from apples and dead insects.

The plan is for the robot to be autonomous so, among other things, it will be able to find fuel sources on its own and extract energy from them without human intervention.

Re:huh?

[SammysIsland]

I have a better idea... Just create a robot that finds a gas station (much more convenient than flies) and refuels itself there.

The robot could even go out and get a job so it can pay for the gas.

Damn lazy robots!!

Re:huh?

[bje2]

i guess i can buy that...so, we're saying that the autonomous vehicle will be able to suck an ample supply of flies from the air, or it will go raid some farmer's apple orchard...got it...

but does this mean

[ministerofsickeningr]

that i can swat it if it comes after:

A. the apples i am attempting to eat at my picnic.
B. the flies at my picnic.
C. violation of airspace?

Re:but does this mean

[dcsmith]

... and when they themselves become pests, we bring in the mechanical flies that eat other mechanical flies to take care of the problem.

Which of course leads us to the problem outlined in "Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly" [nih.gov]

Waitor!

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

There's a dead tiny-fly-eating-aircraft in my soup!

the 15th Commandment.

[jellomizer]

This is the 15th Commandment that Mosas dropped.

Thou shall not make Flesh Eating Robots!

Is it just me whose nervous?

[PickyH3D]

That is nervous about this?

Could you imagine flying on it and getting close to no fuel? Suddenly the pilot tells everyone, "we are looking for large patches of flies in the air to maintain the flight course, but we have no fuel left." Then boom, you crash land in an apple farm only to have the plain eat them before you do, even though it is unable to fly?

Damn tricky plains.

A Logical Extension...

[imag0]

"...microbes are used to extract electricity directly from food - in this case flies or apple."

If that's the case, when will these cool little bots gain the capability to cut out the middleman and huff shit directly into their little hoppers?

Someone let me know. I got a gift idea for Bosses Day. :D

neat, but...

[LodCrappo]

Does it run Linux?

addendum

[fizban]

... The scientists also mentioned that they had named two of the robots that showed especially good survival characteristics "Architect" and "Oracle."

Said one of the scientiests, "We believe these two will really push the limits of what is possible with carnivorous robotic machines today and will do great things in the future."

robot hunts flies all day, too tired to take pics

[johnjay]

I can see it now, the robot spends all it's energy every day hunting flies to sustain itself and can't ever find time to surveil the battlefield.

Re:robot hunts flies all day, too tired to take pi

[Tenebrious1]

I can see it now, the robot spends all it's energy every day hunting flies to sustain itself and can't ever find time to surveil the battlefield.

On the other hand, as a backpacker, I'd love to have a couple of these flying around me during black fly season. They don't have to fight, just fly around my head and catch flies. They can sit fat dumb and happy all night if they want, as long as they keep the flies off me during the day.

Think how this would help researchers in the field as well. They'd allo

Mosquitoes?

[TigrOoOo]

What's it going to take for this thing to feed on mosquitoes? Live, preferably. And if its possible, where can I get about fifty thousand of these things?

Bloody mosquitoes...

Re:Mosquitoes?

[Wizzy Wig]

What's it going to take for this thing to feed on mosquitoes?

That's how it will all start. First, the robot insects will switch from dead flys to live flys. Then, they will discover that "extra jolt" from the human blood in the stomachs of mosquitos. Finally, after the mosquitos are eradicated from the face of the earth, they will have no choice but go to the motherload for their fuel source - human veins. The rest is too gory to go into.

Re:Mosquitoes?

[Firethorn]

I suggest you try setting up some Bat Houses [google.com]

It might not be appropriate for your area, but why bother with machines when nature already has a solution?

Repeat?

[ViolentGreen]

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/0 8/221212&tid=216&tid=126&tid=1&tid=14 [slashdot.org]

Arrrrghh

[jamesjw]

Regular bug spray wont work, Some sort of low level nuke is in order.. EMP in a can anyone?
The moment they make some sorta mechanical killer spider to swallow these flies I'm getting off this rock.

*Looks around the room with great paranoia, theyre here - with their wee robot brains and their beedie robot eyes!!!*

-- Jim.

apply to larger airplanes

[spectrokid]

just fly a little lower, swarms of birds dissapear into the engines; hey! fruittrees, go lower!!

Total Perspective Vortex?

[xanthines-R-yummy]

So if the food were say... a piece of fairy cake, would it show you your place in the universe?

Wrong tense!

[Glock27]

Tiny Aircraft Feeds Itself With Dead Flies

More correctly, possibly a future robot or robotic aircraft might one day feed itself with dead flies, according to the article.

An actual working model that's capable of flight looks to be well in the future. However, another(?) group in England is working on a someone similar design that'll eat garden slugs [wired.com]. That seems far more workable...

Re:Wrong tense!

[Glock27]

Bad proofread...mentally delete the "someone" in the parent post. ;-)

And then we darken the sky...

[Isao]

"To do this they need to get energy from their environment which could include sunlight or water, but in our case it is organic matter".

... Turning a human being ... into this (holds up a battery).

Prepare to be harvested.

Disgusting End of Digestion

[lbmouse]

"...its ability to power itself by digesting its fuel is a major advance..."

They don't explain how the 'back-end' of the digestion process works. Guess they'll need to create even smaller robots with pooper-scoopers.

Wait a sec...

[catdevnull]

So, I can see how an aircraft might get FLIES stuck to it, but Apples? Man, you're flying WAY too low!

Doesn't seem to efficient

[drgonzo59]

It seems that for an electrical device it might be easier use to electromagnetic energy without the need to convert chemical energy from biomass. I remember someone at the university talking about having a small robot just land near a power line and recharge its batteries using induction. Or I imagine in an urban environment there might be other powerful sources of EM energy. But obviously in a remote location, flies and apples would work better.
Any engineers who know more about this?

Re:Doesn't seem to efficient

[colmore]

It's been a while since E&M and I never really used it for anything but if I remember correctly, taking usable energy from the field around a powerline will reduce the energy of the line. For a small robot it wouldn't be much, but if there were millions of the things...

Landfill power plants

[Twillerror]

The fact that we can turn food and other organic material in electricty is what excites me, more then the robot itself.

Could we use this to process our junk, or a good chunk of it in to electricty.

A compost pile that can power power your house, if only just as a small supplement would be cool.

Many do

[bluGill]

Not only can it be done, many landfills are doing this already. Methane is a common by-product of landfills, and it is a unwanted greenhouse gas. They collect this in underground pipes, and then burn it. Commonly they burn it in a generator to generate some extra income

There are downsides though. The amount you get make doesn't really pay for the maintenance on the generators. If it wasn't for environmental concerns over methane they wouldn't do it at all. There just isn't that much to collect.

Muc

Sorry my GTO ate your front yard

[tjstork]

I wonder how much food a car would have to eat to get 350hp, 390ft/lbs of torque. There are reasons gasoline is such a great energy source.

Re:Sorry my GTO ate your front yard

[Firethorn]

about twice as much [hypertextbook.com]

Gasoline, automotive 45.8 MJ/Kg
Carbohydrates 17.2
Proteins 17.2
Fats 38.9

Reminds me

[beforewisdom]

This story, and the picture of the rail thin Asian man who is a tsunami victim I asw this morning in the paper reminded me of the lyrics from a RUSH song I heard back in the 80s, paraphrasing, "They feed the machines, not the people"

great article on the prospects and efficiency of..

[TheLoneCabbage]

bio fule cells

http://www.automation.hut.fi/research/bio/sfc00p os .htm

"Tiny Aircraft Feeds Itself..." does not exist

[Anonymous Coward]

"Tiny Aircraft Feeds Itself With Dead Flies" does not exist yet. Read the article, it says they're **thinking** about it. So, it's not a "waste of beer", yet. Just talk.

Re:"Tiny Aircraft Feeds Itself..." does not exist

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it's just talk, but the talking is being done while consuming large quantities of beer apparently.

Instead of flies, try mosquitoes

[Linuxathome]

There was a very interesting discussion on the Diane Rehm show about West Nile virus and mosquitoes [wamu.org]. One interesting topic of discussion was the issue of mosquitoes in the environment. One argument is that mosquitoes have no ecological benefit and that the world will be better off without them. Sure birds may eat the larvae, but most if not all birds' diets can consist of other insect larvae and other adult insects.

I say we should concentrate on robots that feed on mosquitoes and its larvae. Not only will

Re:Instead of flies, try mosquitoes

[mrhartwig]

...mosquitos are annoying, disease-ridden....

So are flies (except for the parasite part). Anyone want to suggest we get rid of all the flies and then deal with the resulting buildup of dead carcasses due to lack of maggots?

Heck, I don't know if female mosquitos perform any useful function besides being bat food & bird food -- maybe they don't. But I *like* bats & birds. :-) Oh, wait -- female mosquitos are necessary for producing more male mosquitos, right? Guess what -- male mosquitos eat, a

Catching flies?

[Coppit]

My guess is that the best practical way to do this is to have it land on already dead organic matter and "feed". Catching a fly in midair is tough. :)

Adjacent but unconnected

[panurge]

The two projects appear to be unconnected except that they are both happening in a part of the world which is not perhaps best known for its research institutes. It looks like a silly season attempt to get some mindshare. Oh well, let's try some more:

Toshiba makes notebook computers
Toshiba researches small fusion reactors
Conclusion: nuclear notebooks could {fill in your own fantasy here.}

Thrust II went supersonic on land
Thrust II was built in England
Soon the British will be driving around in supersoni

eMachineShop

[stuffduff]

Just happened to see this in the sidebar: eMachineShop [emachineshop.com]

I think I saw that movie.

[N8F8]

Don't the bugs evolve and start eating humans for fuel?

practicality

[ripcrd]

Ok, so they are working on this in a micro scale, but when the hell are they going to make one the size of a gas tank that can power my car???

I've been reading autobiographies of astronauts and others involved in the US Space program recently. They all talk about the fuel cell developed and used during Gemini and later Apollo. I want to know why, 40 yrs. later, these things are not yet practical? Was there just not enough motivation to make one work in that 40 yrs or was it because until now, gas was relatively cheap and no one cared about the smelly smoke coming from cars?

I say force a greater percentage of cars to be hybrids as a start and get ready to roll out the fuel cells.

bugs

[Yo Grark]

Well, here's one time I guess they hope they DON'T work the bugs out!

or

IN SOVIET RUSSIA, THE BUGS MAKE YOU WORK OUT.

or

ALL YOUR BUGS BELONG TO US.

or...

Boo Hiss... I know I know.

Yo Grark

Wonder if it can be powered with

[Cnik70]

Soylent Green???

Urm

[GasKewled]

Venus Flying Trap?

Dead Flies?

[Cytlid]

I'm from the SPCAF, the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Apples and Flies, are you *sure* the flies are dead first? Are you obsolutely positive that they died of *natural causes*?

Now off to talk to that Jobs guy. I've heard he's been abusing Apples.

If it runs on dead flies

[Nine Tenths of The W]

It'll only be useful during the summer in England. A plane that can only fly 3 days a year isn't much of an invention

Re:How long until

[bje2]

it's okay...i'm sure the governor of California has a plan...

Re:How long until

[Dasch]

He's on vacation, but he said he'll be back.

Re:How long until

[iamhassi]

" He's on vacation, but he said he'll be back."

man did you mess that up, should have read like this:

When Governor Schwarzenegger was asked for comment he said with a grin "I'm on vacation, but... I'll be back".

see, it's all about the delivery! Delivery!! ... and timing, that's important too.

Re:How long until

[metlin]

Your sense of humor called.

It said it would be back, too. But not anytime soon.

Re:How long until

[robertjw]

I, for one, welcome our new skynet overlords.

Re:How long until

[bje2]

did you come up with that on the fly?

Re:How long until

[schtum]

Oh, to be a fly on the wall when you came up with that joke!

Re: Is that really easier?

[Black Parrot]

> Couldn't a spybot just land on a powerline and get power from induction?

Alas, Hume demonstrated induction isn't reliable.

Re:Ah

[MajorDick]

Hey there were experiments using organics as microprocessors back in the late 70's early 80's (As I am sure there still are) MOLD on creamed coffee was one they actually tried. I dont remeber the magazine as I read many but it was from 1978-1983 in Byte, Popular Mechanics, Pop-Sci- Pop-Ele- or Radio Electronics, maybe someone else remembers

Re:Bow down...

[Bloem]

Imagine a beowolf cluster of one of these .. oh wait ... all your flies belong to us .. no uhm, but does it run Linux?

Re:I for one welcome...

[MaynardJanKeymeulen]

if you really, really must say it, do it right!

"I for one ... OVERLORDS"

like Kent Brockman in Deep Space Homer [snpp.com] :
And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.
I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality,
I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.

Re:....so now we have....

[Mr. Bad Example]

> Robot feces?

You obviously don't work in marketing. It's called iPoop®.

Re:....so now we have....

[jdray]

Nah, I think it's ePoop. The name iPoop would be reserved for robots connected to the Internet.

Re:why bother with messy biomatter at all?

[lxt]

Because there's far more biomatter available than high tensile power wires. I'm looking out the window now, and can see no power lines at all (it's all underground), but I can see a ton of biomass. Also, taking power from power lines would render the whole point of the project redundant - renewable, clean energy? Power from power lines has to be generated, and it's highly likely that power is coming from a highly polluting source.