EcoBot-III: A robot with guts

Ieropoulos, Ioannis; Greenman, John; Melhuish, Chris; Horsfield, Ian

Abstract

This paper describes the work carried out to develop EcoBot-
III, which is a robot with an artificial digestion system. The robot is powered by Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) and it is designed to collect food and water from the environment, digest the collected food and at the end of the digestion cycle, egest the waste. EcoBot-III operated successfully for 7 days when fed with anaerobic or pasteurized sludge, before mechanical failure required human intervention. Work is ongoing to improve the mechanics and thus extend the artificial agent’s operational lifetime.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (Published)
• Conference Name: The 12th International Conference on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems, ALIFE 2010
• Start Date: Aug 19, 2010
• End Date: Aug 23, 2010
• Publication Date: Aug 24, 2010
• Journal: Artificial Life XII
• Print ISSN: 0-262-29075-8
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 733-740
• Book Title: Artificial Life XII: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems, ALIFE 2010
• ISBN: 9780262290753
• Keywords: energy autonomy, microbial fuel cells, robotics, energy harvesting
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/976130
• Publisher URL: http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=12433
• Related Public URLs: http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/chapters/0262290758chap131.pdf