Pilot project: Smart Gut for Energetically Autonomous Robot

Completed

Not Energy Related
Hydrogen and Fuel Cells(Fuel Cells)

Basic and strategic applied research

PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Physics)
PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Applied Mathematics)
PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Computer Science and Informatics)

Not Cross-cutting

Professor C Melhuish
Computing Engineering and Maths Science
University of the West of England

Standard

EPSRC

01 October 2005

31 January 2007

16 months

£61,924

Energy

South West

Systems -- Materials, Mechanical and Medical Eng

Professor C Melhuish, Computing Engineering and Maths Science, University of the West of England

Professor J Greenman, Applied Sciences, University of the West of England

Dr IAI Ieropuolos, University of the West of England

This Pilot project focuses on the vital issues, for an energetically autonomous robot, of ingesting natural raw substrate, converting (and storing) it into useful energy and removing waste build up. This study focuses on the development of further mechanisms to be used in conjunction with the Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) system developed in the IAS laboratory. An integrated system capable of extracting energy from food (waste or otherwise) will have tremendous potential in fields including autonomous robots and waste energy management.A robot (Ecobot III)will be constructed which incorporates the novel developments outlined in this proposal. This platform will enable us to demonstrate long term energy autonomy in a robot by carrying out tasks which require more energy than the robot starts off with. That is, the robot has to acquire energy from the environment to carry out its work

01/01/07