MIT unveils autonomous, oil-skimming robots

By on Aug 27, 2010 at 3:33 AM
General August 27, 2010

Yesterday, MIT showcased an oil-skimming, autonomous robot dubbed the Seaswarm. As the devices site explains, “Seaswarm uses a photovoltaic powered conveyor belt made of a thin nanowire mesh to propel itself and collect oil.” The robot, which is meant to hunt oil in packs (hence Seaswarm), costs around $20,000 and is powered by solar cells on the top of the device. Multiple robots can self-organize their swarm, without human support, using GPS and Wi-Fi. The device, which CNN describes as, “a treadmill conveyor belt that’s been attached to an ice cooler” drags around nanowire mesh that can absorb 20 times its weight in oil without absorbing any water. When the material is saturated with oil, it can be rolled up and left in the ocean for later pickup (it floats) or can be burned off using a heater located in the robot’s body. The nano-material used releases oil when heated to the proper temperature; which will allow skimmed oil to be recycled and repurposed. MIT estimates that 5,000 skimmers, running 24-hours a day (which they are designed to do), could have cleaned up an oil spill the size of the Gulf of Mexico in one month. MIT plans to continue researching and improving the robot over the next year before looking for a potential buyer. Not exactly mobile technology, but pretty cool technology nonetheless. We’ve got a video explaining how the device works queued up for you after the break.

Read [MIT] Read [CNN]

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  • http://twitter.com/tarund Tarun D.

    That is awesome. It’s little projects like this which show intelligent advancement in nano technology, and in human beings. I’m going to follow this project in hopes that it can be funded for quicker advancement and production of Seaswarm’s to clean up the oil mess in the Gulf of Mexico.

    Great article read to start of the day.

  • supadave

    MIT FTW!!

  • gabe z

    I think that they will get eaten by sharks

  • gabe z

    This is like wall e!

  • Mohammad

    yeah… what he said.

  • Max

    First I hear news that Oil munching bacteria have been working on the Gulf of mexico spill and now this. Thanks to all this, future oil spills won’t cause large scale ecological damage.

  • rederikus

    This is a really good project. I am sure that it will work well once fully developed.

    I wonder a bit as to how it will cope with heavy seas, 20′ waves are not uncommon in the Gulf, during the storm season.

    I would think that seaswarm would also need to be capable of self righting in the event one or more units wer swamped and perhaps inverted.

    Ltes’ hope that BP et al can find a way to bring seaswarm to full production very soon.

    This seems to be the kind of project where having 50000 units sitting in a warehouse ready to be airlifted to a future disaster zone would be a sensible investment.

    Maybe seaswarm could be air-deployed (a seawater degradable parachute and lines, maybe).

    Make it work, please.

    Here are some more tricks that MIT have gotten up to in the last few years.

    http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/gallery/100308_mit_hacks/

    Enjoy.

    • stranger

      Nature cleaned up the Gulf in no time. Funny how the media barely covers that. We went from the End of the World to almost no detectable oil in a few months.

  • Usman

    That is wicked!

  • DInc

    Super slick… hahaaaaaaaaa

  • Bob

    Wait… could the 5,000 skimmers clean up “an oil spill the size of the Gulf of Mexico in one month” or “an oil spill the size of the recent spill in the Gulf of Mexico in one month”?

  • thinkFor aSecond

    think about it… 5,000 of those robots would cost $100 million dollars. how often is there an oil spill this size? is someone seriously going to buy these and sit on them while they depreciate in value? i dont think so. also.. was there any real world testing in the gulf? how much oil can it old? what’s the process to get them back? what’s their useful lifespan?

    don’t get me wrong.. technology is great, but this is still the fantasy world and i don’t think it can be used alone… maybe a few of these guys within an oil slick contained within those booms.

    • jamest337

      I see what you mean. Further proof that these robots are not impressive after all.

    • Thought for 2 seconds

      hmmm 100 million dollars seems like a lot of money for one person. According to publiccitizen.org, the following companies posted these profits in 2007.

      ExxonMobil: $158.5 billion
      Shell: $108.5 billion
      BP: $89.2 billion
      ChevronTexaco: $60.9 billion
      ConocoPhillips: $46.9 billion

      Now take exxon mobil for example. 100,000,000 is about .063% of their profit, to not only recover lost unrefined product, but save face with the public and prevent the types of boycotting and negative press BP has been experiencing. Which i’m will cost them much more that 100 million when the dust settles (cleanup, lawsuits, fines ect..). I can see this product making MIT a good chunk of change. Also take into account, MIT’s labor costs for R&D are mitigated because students do a lot of the legwork. Not to mention they’re completely automated and the only cost to run would be maintenance. My question is what oil company wouldn’t invest in a product like this.

      • NumbersGuy

        Consider the alternative…

        Assuming the video is reasonably accurate, 800 ships were deployed that collected only 3 percent of the spill thus far. I know it’s been over 1 month, but let’s pretend it’s been only a month. So, to be as cost effective as these collectors, a ship needs to run at $125 per day (=$100 million/[30 days*800/3%]) for labor, fuel, etc. That’s not enough to pull out of the harbor.

    • http://none Vince

      How about making BP pay for the devices…..they only made a couple billion…that’s right, I said BILLION in one quarter …yes that’s right ONE QUARTER from gas sales. The price of gas is going to go up for BP Oil to pay for the clean up anyway and guess who is going to pay for it all……..anyone that buys gas.

  • What What ITB

    Poor Kevin Costner.

  • Topher_Alan

    What about the screen size and battery life? This thing will never take off. MIT-FAIL.

  • Bruce

    These may be good (but costly) for small areas, but Oil-eating Bacteria Are Cleaning Up Gulf very well http://www.icr.org/article/5593/

    ICR = Institute for Creation Research

  • zhuwenhao

    加油~

  • http://www.facebook.com/tight.com imsmahasha-alimbayan

    Thank God,4 giving them that mind 2 invent that robot /it is major and a true blessing what ever it cost – God is taking care of it- saving lives, helping people,teaching people He is the greatest Thank You God and thank you inventors of that robot and all the other ones that helped build them.MJH

  • wallyson

    Cool – so we can put those people back to work and get those oil platforms & drilling up and running again!

  • http://TechChase.in Ashish

    Really good project .. this way we can keep sea clean..

  • Jesus pleases

    It is my believe that this robot is still a fantasy. And far away from hitting the production line. Even if it were to hit the market a robot like this would nor survive the hard environment due salt rusting battery power waves animals no sun. Many factors that can demolish this product. It will be many years before it hits the production line

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