Energetically autonomous robots: Food for thought
Energetically autonomous robots: Food for thought
This paper reports on the robot EcoBot-II, which is designed to power itself solely by converting unrefined insect biomass into useful energy using on-board microbial fuel cells with oxygen cathodes. In bench experiments different ‘fuels’ (sugar, fruit and dead flies) were explored in the microbial fuel cell system and their efficiency of conversion to electricity is compared with the maximum available energy calculated from bomb calorimetry trials. In endurance tests EcoBot-II was able to run for 12 days while carrying out phototaxis, temperature sensing and radio transmission of sensed data approximately every 14 min.
artificial autonomy, energy autonomy, pulsed behaviour, microbial fuel cells, oxygen cathode
187-198
Melhuish, Chris
c52dcc8b-1e36-425e-80df-9d05d2b21893
Ieropoulos, Ioannis
6c580270-3e08-430a-9f49-7fbe869daf13
Greenman, John
eb3d9b82-7cac-4442-9301-f34884ae4a16
Horsfield, Ian
2c9d9f82-b90e-4185-bb3a-3ce06cc973cf
November 2006
Melhuish, Chris
c52dcc8b-1e36-425e-80df-9d05d2b21893
Ieropoulos, Ioannis
6c580270-3e08-430a-9f49-7fbe869daf13
Greenman, John
eb3d9b82-7cac-4442-9301-f34884ae4a16
Horsfield, Ian
2c9d9f82-b90e-4185-bb3a-3ce06cc973cf
Melhuish, Chris, Ieropoulos, Ioannis, Greenman, John and Horsfield, Ian
(2006)
Energetically autonomous robots: Food for thought.
Autonomous Robots, 21 (3), .
(doi:10.1007/s10514-006-6574-5).
Abstract
This paper reports on the robot EcoBot-II, which is designed to power itself solely by converting unrefined insect biomass into useful energy using on-board microbial fuel cells with oxygen cathodes. In bench experiments different ‘fuels’ (sugar, fruit and dead flies) were explored in the microbial fuel cell system and their efficiency of conversion to electricity is compared with the maximum available energy calculated from bomb calorimetry trials. In endurance tests EcoBot-II was able to run for 12 days while carrying out phototaxis, temperature sensing and radio transmission of sensed data approximately every 14 min.
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Published date: November 2006
Keywords:
artificial autonomy, energy autonomy, pulsed behaviour, microbial fuel cells, oxygen cathode
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 454467
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/454467
ISSN: 0929-5593
PURE UUID: 96184a78-ae9a-4a6b-973d-6a20631baaeb
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Date deposited: 10 Feb 2022 17:35
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 04:10
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Author:
Chris Melhuish
Author:
John Greenman
Author:
Ian Horsfield
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