Like their natural role model, the AquaJellies glide elegantly and seemingly effortlessly through the water. This is ensured by their adaptive tentacles, which are controlled by an electric drive in the body. The integrated communication and sensor technology as well as real-time diagnosis enable coordinated, collective behavior of several jellyfish even in a limited space.
The AquaJellies celebrated their premiere in 2008 at the Hannover Messe exhibition. Since then, our developers have been constantly working on improved communication technology and condition monitoring of the individual jellyfish on the smartphone. Using an app, the current status of each AquaJelly can be individually recorded and tracked.
Thanks to real-time diagnosis, it is possible to query parameters such as the current battery status, temperature, current power consumption and the depth of the jellyfish in the water. In addition, a movement profile shows the direction in which the particular jellyfish is swimming.
Each AquaJelly decides autonomously which action to carry out next – depending on its state of charge, the position of its drive, but also on the proximity to another jellyfish. The overall behavior of the AquaJellies results in an emergent process. This means: without a fixed control of the overall system, a common behavior of the entire group arises – but only through the simple actions of the individual. This makes AquaJellies the starting point and inspiration for further developments, including studies on collective behavioral patterns. If this principle were applied to automation, several autonomous, decentralized systems could be networked in a targeted manner and larger tasks could be solved together.
The self-organization of AquaJellies is of great importance for automation technology. The communicating technology test beds show how, for example, efficient systems in the area of water technology might look in future. At the same time, they demonstrate innovative developments in system capability, energy efficiency, communication and lightweight structures.