These robots are on a mission to find and destroy jellyfish

All over the world, people are being affected by the increase in the jellyfish population. The jellyfish boom is having a major impact on the fishing industry, safety, and even caused a shut down of one of the world’s largest nuclear reactors by clogging up the turbines.

Overpopulation of jellyfish is becoming a major problem, possibly related to climate change.

Researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have developed a swarm of robots ready to take on the challenge of destroying these harmful jellyfish.

The team, led by Hyeon Myeong, has just finished testing the Jellyfish Elimination Robotic Swarm (JEROS), a group of assembly robots created to tackle jellyfish population control issues.

JEROS squad on the prowl for jellyfish swarms. (Image via KAIST)

Each aquatic robot in the swarm comprises a mountable grinder and two cylinders with propulsion motors that allow the robots to move in many directions. A leader robot in the swarm uses information from a geographic information system to locate the jellyfish and navigates on its own using GPS and INS (inertial navigation system). The other robots just follow along exchanging directional information wirelessly.

Using propulsion speed, JEROS robots can capture jellyfish into their grinders and suction them toward the propellers to exterminate them.

Watch a JEROS robot destroy a jellyfish in this quick clip.
  

The experiment was performed in Masan Bay, South Korea. (Video via urobotkaist)

In the successful set of recent tests, Myeong found that three of these assembly robots, operating at 4 knots can dispose of approximately 2,000 lbs. of jellyfish per hour.

In the future, these jellyfish-hunting robots could also be used in marine patrols, sea waste removal, and even oil spill prevention.