The robotic fish created by researchers in MSU’s College of Engineering is now expanding into a school of underwater robots.
MSU’s team of researchers plans to use a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to work with the U.S. Geological Survey to create a number of robots like the Gliding Robot ACE, or Grace. The robotic fish was designed to record water quality and other environmental data. The new models will be used to track fish implanted with acoustic-transmitting tags in the Great Lakes.
“Think about the GPS in your smartphone, which tracks your movement,” said Xiaobo Tan, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering who is helping lead the project. “Basically the robots will form an equivalent of a GPS satellite network underwater, to localize and follow tagged fish in their vicinity.”
The purpose of monitoring the fish, including lake trout, lake sturgeon and walleye, is to identify why they move from place to place, learn more about their habitats, and find out how they are being affected by invasive species.
After being threatened by over-fishing and invasive species, fish populations in the Great Lakes have recovered in the last decade.
It's important for researchers to understand the factors of those fluctuations.
Overall, the methods used to track fish with the robots will pave the way for aquatic research in the future.
Chris Holbrook, the USGS collaborator on the project said, “The ability to track fish from mobile platforms like the robotic fish will be a huge leap forward for fishery research and assessment — not just in the Great Lakes, but around the world."
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