In certain areas of the world jellyfish are becoming a major problem. Not only can they be deadly if touched by us humans, when they swarm they can cause serious issues where sea water is used for cooling. For example, the Oskarshamn nuclear plant in Sweden had to shut down last week because cooling pipes were clogged with jellyfish.
Manual removal of jellyfish does occur, and manages to achieve a rate of about one ton per hour. But it’s expensive and time consuming, and doesn’t solve the problem. So a research team led by Professor Myung Hyun at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology has created a robot to do the job for us.
That robot is called JEROS, which stands for Jellyfish Elimination Robotic Swarm. It works by suspending a net underneath the water behind which is mounted two large propellers. When a jellyfish enters into the net the propellers are activated, the jellyfish gets sucked towards them, and ultimately is pulverized. You can see it in action in the video below.
JEROS is actually quite an intelligent robot. It is fitted out with a motor and GPS/camera combo so it can detect where the jellyfish swarms are and move to intercept them. Each robot is capable of pulverizing 400kg of jellyfish every hour, and they can work in groups of three or more meaning they easily outperform the manual method. And because the whole system is automated, you can deploy and leave them to it.
Testing of JEROS has already proved successful in Korea, with the plan being to commercialize the robot by April 2014. Hopefully it has the desired effect and JEROS manages to remove the most dangerous swarms from our seas.