The U.S. Navy is funding research to help create robotic fish that might one day act as spies or mine detectors. The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific in San Diego is one of the groups working on developing this new wave of robots.
SPAWAR spokesman Jim Fallin told the Associated Press the robots could become "the next generation of robotics that would operate in that very Navy-unique underwater domain."
The U.S. Office of Naval Research, or ONR, is funding the research at SPAWAR and at universities like Harvard and the University of Georgia.
Drexel University's James Tangorra told the A.P. part of the goal of the research is to understand how fish move:
"We, as engineers, haven't created anything that swims nearly as well as a very basic fish... There are great things we can learn from fish ... The way they propel themselves; the way in which they sense water."
