(CNN) – Some 400 kilometres from the nearest sea, engineering students at ETH Zurich in Switzerland are hard at work on cutting-edge robots that could change the way we study the world's oceans.
The robotic fish “Eve” swings its silicone tail back and forth, propelled by pumps hidden inside it, as it glides fluidly through the cold waters of Lake Zurich, where it is being tested by SURF-eDNA. The student-led group has spent the past two years building a school of soft robotic fish, of which Eve is the latest.
“By making Eve look like a fish, we can be minimally invasive in the ecosystem we’re studying,” master’s student Dennis Baumann told CNN, adding that the biomimetic design should prevent other fish or marine life from being spooked by her presence. “We can blend in, we can integrate into the ecosystem,” he added.
Eve’s ability to camouflage itself as a fish is not its only utility. The autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is also equipped with a camera for filming underwater and a sonar that, when combined with an algorithm, allows it to avoid obstacles.
The AUV also features a filter to collect DNA from the environment, known as “eDNA,” as it swims. The eDNA particles can then be sent to a lab for sequencing to determine which species live in the body of water.
“All animals that are in the environment lose their DNA, so there is DNA floating around that we can find,” Martina Lüthi, a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich, told CNN.
The students hope that “Eve” can offer scientists a more detailed picture of the oceans and their inhabitants. Although they cover more than 70% of our planetMuch of what lies beneath the surface remains a mystery.
Tools such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and remotely operated vehicles are increasingly being used to explore the ocean and learn more about underwater habitats. For example, the Aquaai startupFounded in California, it has developed drones that look like clownfish and can collect information such as oxygen, salinity and pH levels in waterways; and last year, a rover captured the fish filmed at greater depthat 8,300 meters.
The use of eDNA for Monitoring biodiversity is growingbut sampling can be rudimentary: some scientists They still collect it by scooping water with a cup tilted over the side of a boat.
More advanced tools that can study environments in greater detail could be vital to better protecting Earth's oceans, at a time when ocean habitats face unprecedented threats from climate change, overfishing and other human activities.
“We want to build a reliable tool for biologists,” said Baumann, who added that he hopes to one day scale up their technology, making it accessible to any scientist who wants to use it. “Maybe we can prevent species from becoming endangered or extinct.”
