Gearing Advances Drive Air Jellyfish Robot

That's a heck of a title, but I just read an article that lives up to it. It's about how the United States Navy is developing robotic jellyfish that use energy harvesting technology to travel and surveil the oceans for time measured in years. The first prototype--designed by a consortium of universities from around the country--is called AquaJelly.

AquaJelly is an artificial autonomous jellyfish which consists of a translucent hemisphere and eight tentacles for propulsion. AquaJelly's translucent dome houses an annular control board with integrated pressure, light and radio sensors. AquaJelly has a watertight laser-sintered body that houses a central electric motor, two lithium-ion polymer accumulator batteries, the charging control unit and the actuators for the swash plate.

Engineers are currently working on developing actuators that would convert energy from the surrounding ocean into usable energy to power the AquaJelly. I'm a little dubious of how effectively they can carry off such a project since it seems like they're trying to build a sort of perpetual (or very, very long-lasting) motion machine.

University engineers are also working on a similar creature for use in the sky rather the sea. It's called the AirJelly, and its

sole source of power is two lithium-ion polymer accumulator batteries rated at 8V and 400 mA, which can be completely charged in half an hour. It transmits the force to a bevel gear and from there to a succession of eight spur gears, which move the eight tentacles of the jellyfish via cranks. Each tentacle is designed as a structure with Fin Ray Effect. AirJelly is the first indoor flight object with peristaltic drive.

The creature is fairly impressive (if impractical-seeming). I don't know how effective an eight-legged air jellyfish will be at surveying and obtaining information, but I do know that this is one of the most novel applications of gearing technology I've seen yet.