Researchers at DARPA and Nikolai Rulkov of Information Systems Laboratories in San Diego, Ayers, are working on a way to integrate a jelly fish like brain into robotic defense vehicles that will sniff out mines and other hazardous materials autonomously. The drone vehicles of today have problems, like getting stuck due to ignorable differences in its programming with relation to the environment. They hope to create The RoboLamprey using a new electronic nervous systems (ENS) controller, to create autonomous, biometric underwater robots that emulate the animals’ nervous systems.

The boffins are interested in comparing tactile sensing in the soft, bendable tentacles of jellyfish with that of the rigid antennae of lobsters. Then integrating it all into the new ENS controllers to make the vehicle more like a dog that can go fetch a stick without telling it what to do first.

Something like this would be ideal for neutralizing mines in the surf zone (there are about 100 million active mines deployed worldwide, many end up in waterways due to erosion). Plus, there is a real need for bots that can be useful in streams and rivers.

So if you see a strange creature emerge from the water one day, it’s probably a mashup of robot sea creatures, not the creature from the Black Lagoon.

[Physorg]