AquaJelly and AirJelly - amazing jellyfish-shaped robots

We are already accustomed to today's technological progress. It is hard to amaze people nowadays, even with the most advanced and curious gadgets. However, when people create animal-replicated robots, it is always interesting. Many people remember how much attention was around Sony's robotic pet Aibo. Unfortunately, it remained a toy, with no beneficial use at all. Animal-replicated robots can be very useful in many situations where their form and abilities, gathered from living counterparts will suit the most. There already exist dragonfly-like surveillance robots that are small but can fly and have camera built-in - good for espionage or reconnaissance, water-strider robots that can walk on water surface and provide wirelessly needed water parameters... Even jellyfish is now replicated in robot form!

Festo Company developed two amazing jellyfish robots. First one, AquaJelly, operates in the same environment as its natural counterpart - in water. It is equipped with electric drive, radio, and several blue LEDs, which can show not only the position of robot, but also are used for communication between them when they are underwater. Second one prefers the opposite environment - air, that’s why it is called AirJelly. It can fly, with help of a helium-filled envelope as part of its body. As the previous model, it has electric drive to navigate and Zigbee short-range radio to broadcast its position and other information needed. The Festo claims that this is "an artificial autonomous jellyfish with an electric drive and an intelligent, adaptive mechanical system." According to them, this robots can autonomously work together using radio on the surface and LEDs underwater for communication.

Unfortunately, there is no information about probable field of use of these devices. Maybe AirJellys can be used as meteorological probes, while AquaJellys - to control some underwater parameters and to provide useful and operative information about current water state. Of course, military structures can find other usages for these devices, more destructive ones probably. Let's hope they will be used in peaceful purposes only.