Seaswarm |Adam Pruden |TEDxMidAtlantic

As a Research Fellow at MIT's Senseable City Lab, Adam Pruden is the current team leader for Seaswarm, a swarm of autonomous sea robots, which coordinate in unison to sense and clean oil from the water's surface using nanofabric. At Senseable, we are utilizing and exploring new technologies to try and solve major environmental issues. Before joining MIT, Adam graduated from Ball State University in Indiana.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

I want to share with you today

how we can use new technology to make
oil skimmers of the future smarter.

And we're developing one
that can think on its own;

it can perform multiple tasks,

and it's learning how to behave
by mimicking ants.

So, how does current skimming
technology measure up today?

We've learned a lot
from the recent oil spill.

We've learned that over the past 20 years,

drilling technology
has made huge advancements,

while skimming technology
has fallen way behind.

In fact, over this past oil spill,

over 800 skimmers were deployed
to help clean the oil,

but they only collected three percent,

leaving most of the oil
to harmful dispersants.

So we asked the question,
"How can we make a smarter skimmer,

and what are the characteristics
of a future skimmer?"

We came up with three.

The first is autonomy.

We knew from the beginning that we wanted
a skimmer that was unmanned,

that kept humans
away from the harmful chemicals

found in crude oil and dispersants.

When we learned about a new nanofabric

developed just down the hall
from us at MIT -

a fabric that could absorb oil -

we imagined it as the key technology

to help make the autonomy
of our vehicle seamless.

I'd like to introduce Seaswarm,

using the same nanofabric
like a continuous paper towel,

gliding on the surface of the water,

continuously soaking up the oil

and processing it
and collecting it in a chamber.

Because Seaswarm is powered
with enough solar energy,

it can operate day and night
continuously for weeks.

The second characteristic was scalability,

something we're learning by studying ants.

Now, a single ant by itself cannot
accomplish as many tasks as a colony,

and when the ants
come together and form teams,

they can accomplish things
unthinkable by an individual ant,

such as determining
the quickest path to food

and delegating tasks
and tending to specific territories.

So we can take the same swarming behavior
that we're seeing in nature

and apply it to robots.

We can use algorithms and sensors,

wi-fi and GPS.

And just like ants, the robots
can operate as a single entity

or they can come together as a swarm,

and they can share information
with each other.

They can share things like
weather patterns and oil spill locations.

So the more information
that they're sharing with each other,

the smarter they become;

and the smarter they become,

the more intelligent
decisions they can make.

They can determine
the quickest path to the oil,

and they can determine
which teams to form, and so on.

And finally, Seaswarm is adaptable;

it can respond to a multitude of tasks
in many different locations,

from the middle of the ocean
to the middle of a lake.

Actually, what you see here in this image
is the original inspiration for Seaswarm.

This is an image of the garbage patch,

a kind of soup of plastic
and trash the size of Texas

in the middle of the ocean.

Just as our team was originally forming
to tackle the garbage patch,

the oil spill occurred,

and we decided to redirect our efforts
to oil spill recovery.

But now we're revisiting
the garbage patch,

and we're reimagining our vehicle

as something that could tackle
many sea-related issues,

something that could constantly
respond to oil spills and chemical spills,

gathering trash and garbage,

all while monitoring
the vitals of our sea,

and then relaying this information
back to us in real time.

We see Seaswarm as a future skimmer,
something that's smarter.

With a fleet of autonomous vehicles

constantly surveying
the surface of our water,

we can hear, with more clarity
than ever before,

exactly what the ocean is saying to us,

and we can quickly respond
and adapt to its needs.

Thank you.

(Applause)