US Navy Develops Robot 'Jellyfish' Powered Exclusively by Seawater~

Potential military applications for 'Robojelly' 

nearly as infinite as it's hydrogen energy supply...

Robojelly in the lab

Although still in early stages of development, researchers from Virginia Tech and UT at Dallas have created an amazing hydrogen-powered underwater drone that looks and moves like a jellyfish, pumping itself along via artificial muscles... 

Robojelly is the first successful underwater robot ever created that uses external hydrogen as it's only power source, while it appears the opaque, plastic blob would be all but undetectable by the enemy when deployed for recon. The unit also holds promise for various underwater rescue/salvage operations.

The impressive technology uses no electricity for motivation, rather hydrogen (and oxygen) from the seawater in which it sails... the only waste/exhaust released is more water. 

Yet inspiration from nature is nothing new to US military planners, as they've been working on micro-drones (MAVs) that mimic insects/hummingbirds in function and appearance for a few years now.

Just imagine a less-than-1" solar-powered unit with VTOL flight capabilities that could fly through bunker ventilation systems, looking for the right iris-scan to plunge a poison dart-into...  or hover/spy over, around, and inside an enemy installation undetected for years... or fly in choreographed swarms (with titanium chips) into enemy fighters' engine intakes, exploding their turbines the very moment they leave the ground and you'll have some idea what the Pentagon is up to these days.

Now if we only had a Commander-in-Chief we could trust will all these vicious little beasties...

ScienceSpaceRobots   BBC   Washington Times   Daily Mail (UK)

Robojelly is a robot jellyfish funded US Navy researchers xxx MAVs