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BRISTOL -- Our dreams of having a robot powered by human waste that brings in the daily paper may soon become a reality.
Or was that was just me?
Regardless, scientists at Bristol Robotics Laboratory have successfully created a robot capable of ingesting organic material within its environment, turning it into usable energy, getting rid of the waste, just like a human would.
EcoBot III is the third in a line of environmentally friendly robots being designed by the team at Bristol. The first model of EcoBot, created in 2003 contained a microbial fuel cell that was powered by E. coli bacteria that fed on refined sugar. In 2005, EcoBot-II hit the production floor, and harnessed sludge microbes to break down dead flies, prawn shells and rotten apples. Any organic matter would do, including waste material.
Soon, scientists began to see that the robot's own waste was accumulating and poisoning internal systems, and realized that it was necessary to allow the robot to shed waste. To be perfectly frank, it needed to be able to poop.
"EcoBot-III is a robot that collects its own food and water from the environment," said Ioannis Ieropoulos, a roboticist at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory. "It performs the task we design it to do, and at the end of the day, it gets rid of its own waste."
The EcoBot team -- which consists of Ieropoulos, BRL Director Chris Melhuish, and microbiologist John Greenman -- gives credit to other researchers for pioneering the development of microbial fuel cells powered by sludge, and hope to push the boundaries of the research, allowing the bots to perform simple tasks fueled solely by microbial fuel cells (MFCs) to digest organic matter and dump waste.
The use of a waste-powered robot has garnered the attention of several big names in research. NASA has already expressed interest in the machine for possible manned expeditions to Mars, and the group has also received a research grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.
The EcoBot-III design is capable of scanning its environment for consumable organic material, but then requires a charging period before performing its functions. Its power remains limited by the power available in the fuel cells, but the EcoBot team hopes that future models of EcoBot can both shrink in size, and have more available power based on boosting the stacks of MFCs.
Here's hoping EcoBot-IV comes with a built-in air freshener.
