Blog: MIT Builds Swimming, Oil-Eating Robots

MIT Builds Swimming, Oil-Eating Robots
Computerworld (08/26/10) Gaudin, Sharon

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers have developed a robot using nanotechnology that can autonomously navigate across an ocean's surface and clean up an oil spill. The researchers say that a fleet of 5,000 robots, called a Seaswarm, could clean up a spill the size of the recent one in the Gulf of Mexico in about a month. "Unlike traditional skimmers, Seaswarm is based on a system of small, autonomous units that behave like a swarm and 'digest' the oil locally while working around the clock without human intervention," says MIT's Carlo Ratti. Seaswarm is designed to use a conveyor belt covered with a thin nanowire mesh that absorbs oil. The nanomesh repels water while absorbing 20 times its own weight in oil. A team of robots would use wireless communications and global positioning systems to move across the ocean without bunching up or leaving some parts uncleaned.

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