演说者：  Jonathan Rossiter

演说题目：会吃汙染物的机器人

来看划水机器人，一种会清除污染物，而且靠吃污水就会自我发电的机器人。机器人专家强纳生．罗斯特解释这种特殊的游泳机器，本身使用微生物燃料电池，能中和藻华及油污，成为可生物分解、自主对抗污染物的机器人先驱。

注: 喜马拉雅FM搜索: TED英语演说，提供Mp3音频下载。

00:12

Hi, I'm an engineer and I make robots. Now, of course you all know what a robot is, right? If you don't, you'd probably go to Google, and you'd ask Google what a robot is. So let's do that. We'll go to Google and this is what we get. Now, you can see here there are lots of different types of robots, but they're predominantly humanoid in structure. And they look pretty conventional because they've got plastic, they've got metal, they've got motors and gears and so on. Some of them look quite friendly, and you could go up and you could hug them. Some of them not so friendly, they look like they're straight out of "Terminator," in fact they may well be straight out of "Terminator." You can do lots of really cool things with these robots -- you can do really exciting stuff.

00:56

But I'd like to look at different kinds of robots -- I want to make different kinds of robots. And I take inspiration from the things that don't look like us, but look like these. So these are natural biological organisms and they do some really cool things that we can't, and current robots can't either. They do all sorts of great things like moving around on the floor; they go into our gardens and they eat our crops; they climb trees; they go in water, they come out of water; they trap insects and digest them. So they do really interesting things. They live, they breathe, they die, they eat things from the environment. Our current robots don't really do that. Now, wouldn't it be great if you could use some of those characteristics in future robots so that you could solve some really interesting problems? I'm going to look at a couple of problems now in the environment where we can use the skills and the technologies derived from these animals and from the plants, and we can use them to solve those problems.

01:54

Let's have a look at two environmental problems. They're both of our making -- this is man interacting with the environment and doing some rather unpleasant things. The first one is to do with the pressure of population. Such is the pressure of population around the world that agriculture and farming is required to produce more and more crops. Now, to do that, farmers put more and more chemicals onto the land. They put on fertilizers, nitrates, pesticides -- all sorts of things that encourage the growth of the crops, but there are some negative impacts. One of the negative impacts is if you put lots of fertilizer on the land, not all of it goes into the crops. Lots of it stays in the soil, and then when it rains, these chemicals go into the water table. And in the water table, then they go into streams, into lakes, into rivers and into the sea. Now, if you put all of these chemicals, these nitrates, into those kinds of environments, there are organisms in those environments that will be affected by that -- algae, for example. Algae loves nitrates, it loves fertilizer, so it will take in all these chemicals, and if the conditions are right, it will mass produce. It will produce masses and masses of new algae. That's called a bloom. The trouble is that when algae reproduces like this, it starves the water of oxygen. As soon as you do that, the other organisms in the water can't survive. So, what do we do? We try to produce a robot that will eat the algae, consume it and make it safe.

03:25

So that's the first problem. The second problem is also of our making, and it's to do with oil pollution. Now, oil comes out of the engines that we use, the boats that we use. Sometimes tankers flush their oil tanks into the sea, so oil is released into the sea that way. Wouldn't it be nice if we could treat that in some way using robots that could eat the pollution the oil fields have produced? So that's what we do. We make robots that will eat pollution.

03:55

To actually make the robot, we take inspiration from two organisms. On the right there you see the basking shark. The basking shark is a massive shark. It's noncarnivorous, so you can swim with it, as you can see. And the basking shark opens its mouth, and it swims through the water, collecting plankton. As it does that, it digests the food, and then it uses that energy in its body to keep moving. So, could we make a robot like that -- like the basking shark that chugs through the water and eats up pollution? Well, let's see if we can do that. But also, we take the inspiration from other organisms. I've got a picture here of a water boatman, and the water boatman is really cute. When it's swimming in the water, it uses its paddle-like legs to push itself forward.

04:41

So we take those two organisms and we combine them together to make a new kind of robot. In fact, because we're using the water boatman as inspiration, and our robot sits on top of the water, and it rows, we call it the "Row-bot." So a Row-bot is a robot that rows. OK. So what does it look like? Here's some pictures of the Row-bot, and you'll see, it doesn't look anything like the robots we saw right at the beginning. Google is wrong; robots don't look like that, they look like this.

05:13

So I've got the Row-bot here. I'll just hold it up for you. It gives you a sense of the scale, and it doesn't look anything like the others. OK, so it's made out of plastic, and we'll have a look now at the components that make up the Row-bot -- what makes it really special.

05:27

The Row-bot is made up of three parts, and those three parts are really like the parts of any organism. It's got a brain, it's got a body and it's got a stomach. It needs the stomach to create the energy. Any Row-bot will have those three components, and any organism will have those three components, so let's go through them one at a time. It has a body, and its body is made out of plastic, and it sits on top of the water. And it's got flippers on the side here -- paddles that help it move, just like the water boatman. It's got a plastic body, but it's got a soft rubber mouth here, and a mouth here -- it's got two mouths. Why does it have two mouths? One is to let the food go in and the other is to let the food go out. So you can see really it's got a mouth and a derriere, or a --

06:17

something where the stuff comes out, which is just like a real organism. So it's starting to look like that basking shark. So that's the body.

06:24

The second component might be the stomach. We need to get the energy into the robot and we need to treat the pollution, so the pollution goes in, and it will do something. It's got a cell in the middle here called a microbial fuel cell. I'll put this down, and I'll lift up the fuel cell. Here. So instead of having batteries, instead of having a conventional power system, it's got one of these. This is its stomach. And it really is a stomach because you can put energy in this side in the form of pollution, and it creates electricity.

06:55

So what is it? It's called a microbial fuel cell. It's a little bit like a chemical fuel cell, which you might have come across in school, or you might've seen in the news. Chemical fuel cells take hydrogen and oxygen, and they can combine them together and you get electricity. That's well-established technology; it was in the Apollo space missions. That's from 40, 50 years ago. This is slightly newer. This is a microbial fuel cell. It's the same principle: it's got oxygen on one side, but instead of having hydrogen on the other, it's got some soup, and inside that soup there are living microbes. Now, if you take some organic material -- could be some waste products, some food, maybe a bit of your sandwich -- you put it in there, the microbes will eat that food, and they will turn it into electricity. Not only that, but if you select the right kind of microbes, you can use the microbial fuel cell to treat some of the pollution. If you choose the right microbes, the microbes will eat the algae. If you use other kinds of microbes, they will eat petroleum spirits and crude oil. So you can see how this stomach could be used to not only treat the pollution but also to generate electricity from the pollution. So the robot will move through the environment, taking food into its stomach, digest the food, create electricity, use that electricity to move through the environment and keep doing this.

08:17

OK, so let's see what happens when we run the Row-bot -- when it does some rowing. Here we've got a couple of videos, the first thing you'll see -- hopefully you can see here is the mouth open. The front mouth and the bottom mouth open, and it will stay opened enough, then the robot will start to row forward. It moves through the water so that food goes in as the waste products go out. Once it's moved enough, it stops and then it closes the mouth -- slowly closes the mouths -- and then it will sit there, and it will digest the food.

08:49

Of course these microbial fuel cells, they contain microbes. What you really want is lots of energy coming out of those microbes as quickly as possible. But we can't force the microbes and they generate a small amount of electricity per second. They generate milliwatts, or microwatts. Let's put that into context. Your mobile phone for example, one of these modern ones, if you use it, it takes about one watt. So that's a thousand or a million times as much energy that that uses compared to the microbial fuel cell. How can we cope with that? Well, when the Row-bot has done its digestion, when it's taken the food in, it will sit there and it will wait until it has consumed all that food. That could take some hours, it could take some days. A typical cycle for the Row-bot looks like this: you open your mouth, you move, you close your mouth and you sit there for a while waiting. Once you digest your food, then you can go about doing the same thing again. But you know what, that looks like a real organism, doesn't it? It looks like the kind of thing we do. Saturday night, we go out, open our mouths, fill our stomachs, sit in front of the telly and digest. When we've had enough, we do the same thing again.

10:00

OK, if we're lucky with this cycle, at the end of the cycle we'll have enough energy left over for us to be able to do something else. We could send a message, for example. We could send a message saying, "This is how much pollution I've eaten recently," or, "This is the kind of stuff that I've encountered," or, "This is where I am." That ability to send a message saying, "This is where I am," is really, really important. If you think about the oil slicks that we saw before, or those massive algal blooms, what you really want to do is put your Row-bot out there, and it eats up all of those pollutions, and then you have to go collect them. Why? Because these Row-bots at the moment, this Row-bot I've got here, it contains motors, it contains wires, it contains components which themselves are not biodegradable. Current Row-bots contain things like toxic batteries. You can't leave those in the environment, so you need to track them, and then when they've finished their job of work, you need to collect them. That limits the number of Row-bots you can use. If, on the other hand, you have robot a little bit like a biological organism, when it comes to the end of its life, it dies and it degrades to nothing.

11:06

So wouldn't it be nice if these robots, instead of being like this, made out of plastic, were made out of other materials, which when you throw them out there, they biodegrade to nothing? That changes the way in which we use robots. Instead of putting 10 or 100 out into the environment, having to track them, and then when they die, collect them, you could put a thousand, a million, a billion robots into the environment. Just spread them around. You know that at the end of their lives, they're going to degrade to nothing. You don't need to worry about them. So that changes the way in which you think about robots and the way you deploy them.

11:41

Then the question is: Can you do this? Well, yes, we have shown that you can do this. You can make robots which are biodegradable. What's really interesting is you can use household materials to make these biodegradable robots. I'll show you some; you might be surprised. You can make a robot out of jelly. Instead of having a motor, which we have at the moment, you can make things called artificial muscles. Artificial muscles are smart materials, you apply electricity to them, and they contract, or they bend or they twist. They look like real muscles. So instead of having a motor, you have these artificial muscles. And you can make artificial muscles out of jelly. If you take some jelly and some salts, and do a bit of jiggery-pokery, you can make an artificial muscle.

12:22

We've also shown you can make the microbial fuel cell's stomach out of paper. So you could make the whole robot out of biodegradable materials. You throw them out there, and they degrade to nothing.

12:35

Well, this is really, really exciting. It's going to totally change the way in which we think about robots, but also it allows you to be really creative in the way in which you think about what you can do with these robots. I'll give you an example. If you can use jelly to make a robot -- now, we eat jelly, right? So, why not make something like this? A robot gummy bear. Here, I've got some I prepared earlier. There we go. I've got a packet -- and I've got a lemon-flavored one. I'll take this gummy bear -- he's not robotic, OK? We have to pretend. And what you do with one of these is you put it in your mouth -- the lemon's quite nice. Try not to chew it too much, it's a robot, it may not like it. And then you swallow it. And then it goes into your stomach. And when it's inside your stomach, it moves, it thinks, it twists, it bends, it does something. It could go further down into your intestines, find out whether you've got some ulcer or cancer, maybe do an injection, something like that. You know that once it's done its job of work, it could be consumed by your stomach, or if you don't want that, it could go straight through you, into the toilet, and be degraded safely in the environment. So this changes the way, again, in which we think about robots.

13:50

So, we started off looking at robots that would eat pollution, and then we're looking at robots which we can eat. I hope this gives you some idea of the kinds of things we can do with future robots.

14:03

Thank you very much for your attention.

00:12

大家好，我是一名工程师， 我是做机器人的。 当然了，你们都知道什么是机器人， 如果你不知道， 可能会去谷歌搜索一下， 问问谷歌，什么是机器人？ 咱们用谷歌搜一下。 这就是我们在谷歌上得到的。 你会发现这里有很多 不同样式的机器人， 但它们的结构 主要是模仿人类的， 而且看上去都是常规的样子， 因为它们有塑料、有金属， 还有发动机、齿轮等等。 有些机器人看起来很友善， 你可以过去抱一下。 也有些看起来不怎么友善， 就像是从电影《终结者》里 直接走出来的一样。 其实，他们可能 真的就从《终结者》来的。 有了这些机器人， 你可以做很多很酷的事情—— 还有很刺激的事情。

00:56

但我想去关注另一种机器人—— 我想做不同种类的机器人。 给我灵感的东西 看起来并不像我们人类， 而是像这些。 这些便是自然生物有机体， 它们能做很多很酷的事、 我们和现有的机器人 都做不到的事。 它们能做的很厉害的事 包括在地面上到处走； 去花园，吃农作物； 爬树； 出入水面； 捕捉并消化昆虫等等。 所以说，它们所能做的事很有趣。 它们出生、呼吸、死亡， 他们也从自然环境中摄取食物。 这都是我们现有的机器人所不能做的。 那么，如果我们可以 把这些特性的一部分 放到未来的机器人身上， 来解决一些很有趣的问题，会不会很棒？ 下面讨论几个环境问题， 我们可以在这些环境中 应用这些动植物 拥有的能力和技巧 来解决这些问题。

01:54

我们来看两个环境问题。 都是人类造成的—— 这是人类与环境相互作用， 造成的一些不怎么好的后果。 第一个问题与人口压力有关。 世界人口的压力 要求农业生产更多农作物。 要做到这一点， 农民需要对土地 使用越来越多的化学品。 他们使用的包括 肥料、硝酸盐、农药—— 各种促进农作物生长的东西， 但这也有负面影响。 其中一个负面影响是， 如果在田里施很多肥料， 作物并不能吸收所有的肥料。 很多肥料会留在土壤里， 然后下雨时， 这些化学品流进地下水。 顺着地下水， 进入小溪、湖泊、河流， 最后进入海洋。 当这些化学品、硝酸盐 进入环境中时， 生活在这些环境里的生物 就会受到影响—— 比如藻类。 藻类热爱硝酸盐，它喜欢肥料， 所以它吸收这些化学品。 条件适宜时，藻类大量繁殖， 繁殖出一堆一堆的新藻。 这叫做爆藻。 麻烦的是，藻类这样繁殖时， 会耗尽水中的氧气。 氧气一旦耗尽， 水中其它生物就无法生存。 那怎么办？ 我们尝试制造 会吃水藻的机器人， 能把水藻吃光，又很安全。

03:25

这是第一个问题。 而第二个问题也是人类的杰作， 是油污染。 我们的发动机、船只 都会释放出油类。 有时候油轮把油箱里的物质排进海里， 油就这样进入海水。 如果我们可以使用 能吃掉油污染物的机器人， 那是不是很美好？ 这就是我们正在做的。 我们做的是 能吃掉污染物的机器人。

03:55

为了实际造出这种机器人， 我们从两种生物中获取灵感。 右边那张是姥鲨。 姥鲨是大型鲨鱼， 它是非肉食动物， 所以你可以跟它一起游泳， 就像这样。 姥鲨张着大嘴， 游过水面，收集浮游生物。 同时，它消化食物， 在体内产生能量，赖以继续活动。 那么，我们能不能 做个这样的机器人 -- 像姥鲨一样在水里慢慢前进 吃掉污染物？ 那我们来看看能不能做。 另外我们从另一生物得到的灵感。 这照片是水船虫。 水船虫真的很可爱。 它游泳时， 用船桨一样的腿向前推自己。

04:41

那么我们取两者之长处， 结合在一起， 做成一种新型机器人。 实际上，因为从水船虫得到的灵感， 以及我们的机器人坐在水面上， 划行向前， 我们就称它为“划水机器人”。 所以划水机器人是个 会划水的机器人。 好，那它长什么样子？ 这是一些照片。 你们看， 它一点都不像 我们开头看到的机器人。 所以谷歌错了， 机器人不是它说的那样， 机器人长这样。

05:12

我这里有一只划水机器人。 我拿起来给你们看， 让你们了解一下它的大小， 而且它一点也不像其它机器人。 它是塑料的。 现在我们来看看 划水机器人的组件—— 使它特别的地方。

05:27

划水机器人由三个部分组成， 就像任何生物的组成部分。 它有大脑、 有身体、 有胃。 它需要胃来产生能量。 所有划水机器人都有这三部分， 就像任何生物都有这三部分一样。 我们一个个来看。 它有身体， 塑料制成的身体， 它可以坐在水面上。 脚蹼在旁边这里—— 帮助机器人移动， 就像水船虫一样。 它的身体是塑料的， 但这里有软橡胶做的嘴。 这里还有另一张嘴， 它有两张嘴。 为什么要两张嘴？ 一张让食物进来， 另一张让食物出去。 所以你们可以看到， 它有嘴，有臀部， 或者是 --

06:16

排泄的地方，

06:17

就像真的生物一样。 所以它开始有点像那个姥鲨了。 那么刚才说的是身体。 第二部分是胃。

06:27

我们需要给机器人输入能量， 还需要处理污染。 所以污染物从这里进去， 机器人会处理一下， 中间这里有电池， 称为微生物燃料电池。 我把这个放下， 把燃料电池拿起来。 这不是电池， 也不是传统的供电系统， 而是这个—— 它的胃。 它真的是个胃。 因为你可以在这边 放进污染物形式的能量， 它就发电。 所以这是什么？

06:55

它叫做微生物燃料电池。 它有点像化学燃料电池。 你大概在学校看过， 或者新闻里看过。 化学燃料电池利用氢气和氧气， 把两者结合，获得电力。 这是成熟的技术， 在阿波罗太空计划里用过， 就是说四、五十年以前就有了。 但这个比较新， 这是微生物燃料电池。 原理相同： 氧气在一边， 但另一边不是氢气， 而是一种混合液。 混合液中有活的微生物。 如果你拿一些有机材料—— 可以是某种废品、食物， 或者用一点你的三明治 -- 把它放进这里面， 微生物会吃掉它， 然后把这食物转化成电力。 不仅如此，如果微生物的种类正确， 你可以用微生物燃料电池 处理某些污染物。 如果选对了微生物， 那微生物可以吃掉藻类； 如果用另一种微生物， 它可以吃掉石油醚和原油。 所以你看到了 如何使用这个胃 来不仅处理污染物， 而且能用污染物发电。 所以这个机器人 在环境中到处移动， 把食物吃进胃里， 消化吃进去的食物，发电， 再利用电力在环境中继续移动， 如此周而复始。 那么，我们看看 划水机器人工作的样子——

08:20

它划水时的样子。 这里有几段影片。 你们看到的第一个动作—— 希望大家都能看到， 是张开嘴巴。 前嘴后嘴都张开， 它会一直把嘴张得足够大， 然后机器人开始向前划行。 它在水中移动， 使食物进去，废弃物出来。 当它移动够了， 就停下，合上嘴巴—— 慢慢合上—— 然后就坐在那里， 开始消化食物。 当然这些微生物燃料电池里

08:52

有微生物存在。 你真正想要的是从这些微生物 得到很多能量，并且越快越好。 但我们不能强迫微生物， 它们每秒只能产生一点点电， 发电量是毫瓦或微瓦级。 对这个发电量做个比较。 比如你的手机， 像这种现代一点的。 使用手机时，耗电量大约一瓦。 所以手机的耗电量 是微生物燃料电池的 一千倍或一百万倍。 那我们怎么办呢？ 划水机器人消化完食物之后， 当它吃进食物后， 就会坐在那里， 一直等到食物消化完。 那需要几个小时，甚至好几天。 划水机器人典型的工作周期 是这样的： 张开嘴， 移动， 合上嘴， 坐在那里等。 一旦把食物消化完， 就把相同的事情再做一遍。 可是你看， 这是不是很像真的生物啊？ 跟我们做的事情很像。 周六晚上，我们出门，张嘴， 把胃塞满， 坐在电视机前，消化。 觉得消化完了，又重复同样的事。 好，如果这次循环很幸运，

10:03

循环结束时还有足够的剩余能量 去做点别的事， 比如可以发个短信。 我们可以发个短信说， “我最近吃了这么多污染物”， 或者“我最近遇到了这东西”， 或者“这是我的当前位置”。 能够发出“这是我的当前位置”的短信 是非常非常重要的。 设想一下之前看到的 水面的油污画面， 或者大片藻类。 你真的想把划水机器人送过去， 把所有污染物吃光， 然后你得把它们收回来。 为什么？ 因为目前这些划水机器人 和我这里的这只划水机器人， 里面有马达、电线， 有自己不能生物降解的组件。 目前的划水机器人里面 包括有毒电池等等， 你不能把它们留在环境里， 所以必须追踪它们的位置。 在它们完成工作后， 必须回收。 这会限制可用机器人的数量。 另一方面， 如果你的机器人有点像生物体， 那它在生命结束时， 会死亡且降解消失。 所以，

11:07

如果这些机器人不是 像现在这样用塑料制成， 而是用其它材料， 那种丢在外面就可以 降解消失的材料 该有多好？ 那就会改变我们使用机器人的方式。 与其放10个、100个 机器人到环境中， 不得不追踪它们， 还要在死掉后 收回来， 不如放1000个、 一百万个、十亿个机器人， 就让它们随意散落在环境中。 你知道它们寿终时会降解消失， 而不需要担心它们的回收。 那样会改变你对机器人的想法， 以及使用它们的方式。 随之而来的问题： 你能做吗？

11:43

是的，我们已经证明， 你也可以做。 你可以制造可生物降解的机器人。 真正有意思的是， 你可以使用日常原料， 来制造这种可生物降解的机器人。 我给大家看几个， 你们可能会很惊讶。 你能用果冻做出机器人。 那么取代现在这个马达的是， 你可以造出叫做人造肌肉的东西。 人造肌肉是一种智能材料， 给它通电， 它就会收缩、弯曲或扭转， 它看起来就像真的肌肉。 所以，与其使用马达， 不如使用人造肌肉。 你可以用果冻做人造肌肉。 给果冻加点盐， 然后鼓捣鼓捣， 就做出人造肌肉了。 我们还证明了，可以用纸，

12:24

做微生物燃料电池的胃。 因此整个机器人都可以 用生物降解材料制造。 把它们丢出去， 它们会自己降解消失。 这真的非常令人兴奋。

12:37

这会彻底改变我们对机器人的看法。 而且还让你变得有创意， 想出更多机器人的用途。 我举个例子。 如果你能用果冻做机器人—— 大家都吃果冻吧？ 那，为什么不这样做？ 橡皮熊机器人。 这里，我准备了几个。 好了，我有一袋—— 我拿了一个柠檬味儿的。 我要吃掉这个橡皮熊软糖—— 这个不是机器人， 我们得先假装一下。 你要拿它做什么用呢？ 把它放进嘴里—— 柠檬味儿不错。 不要太用力嚼， 机器人可能不喜欢。 然后吞下去。 然后它进入你的胃。 到胃里之后， 它移动、思考、扭转、弯曲， 各种折腾。 然后再跑到你的肠道， 看看你有没有溃疡或癌症， 或许顺便打个针之类的。 你知道它完成任务后， 会被你的胃消化掉。 或者，如果你不愿意， 它可以只在你的身体里走个过场， 掉进马桶， 在环境中安全分解。 所以再次说明， 这会改变我们对机器人的想法。 我们从可以吃掉污染物的机器人开始，

13:54

直到可以被我们吃掉的机器人。 希望能给大家一些灵感， 看看我们能如何使用 未来的机器人。 谢谢大家！

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