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.
嗨,我是工程師, 我製造機器人。 當然你們都知道機器人,對吧? 如果你不知道, 你大概會用谷歌 (Google), 查一下什麼是機器人。 我們也來試一下。 我們用谷歌得到這些。 你可以看到這裡 有很多種不同的機器人, 但是它們很明顯在結構上都很像人。 而且它們有傳統的外型, 因為它們有塑膠、金屬, 還有馬達、傳動裝置等等。 有些看起來很友善, 你可以過去抱一下。 有一些就不那麼友善, 它們看起來好像從 《魔鬼終結者》裡直接走出來, 事實上它們的確很可能是從 《魔鬼終結者》裡出來的。 你可以用這些機器人 做很多很酷的事, 很令人興奮的事。
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.
但是我想研究不同種類的機器人。 我想製造不同種的機器人。 我的靈感來自跟我們不太像的東西, 反而像這樣的東西。 這些都是天然的生物體, 它們會做很酷的事,我們做不到的, 而且目前的機器人也做不到。 它們會做各種很厲害的事, 像在地板上移動; 它們會去花園,吃我們的作物; 它們會爬樹; 它們會入水出水; 它們捕捉並消化昆蟲。 它們會做很有意思的事情。 它們生存、呼吸、死亡, 它們會吃環境裡的東西。 我們現有的機器人不會做這件事。 那麼,這不是很棒嗎? 如果你可以在未來的機器人上 應用這些特點, 不就可以解決某些非常 有意思的難題? 我要讓大家看目前 在環境中的幾個難題。 我們可以運用 從這些動植物得到的技巧及科技, 我們可以用來解決這些問題。
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.
我們來看兩個環境問題。 兩者都是人搞出來的── 這是人跟環境互動 所做出的一些很討厭的事。 第一個問題跟人口壓力有關。 全世界的人口壓力 讓農業必須生產更多的作物。 那麼,要做到這點, 農夫得施更多化學製品到田裡。 他們得施肥料、硝酸鹽、殺蟲劑── 各式各樣的東西促進作物成長, 但是這有負面影響。 其中一個負面影響就是, 如果你在田裡施很多肥料, 不是所有的肥料都會被作物吸收。 很多會留在土裡, 然後下雨時, 這些化學品就會流進地下水裡。 順著地下水, 它們會流進小溪、湖泊、河流, 然後進入海洋。 如果你把這些化學品,這些硝酸鹽, 放進像這樣的環境中, 生活在這些環境內的生物 就會受到影響── 譬如藻類。 藻類很愛硝酸鹽,它喜歡肥料, 所以它會吸收這些化學製品, 在適宜的條件下,它會大量繁殖。 它會繁殖出一大團又一大團的新藻類, 稱為藻華。 麻煩的是當藻類像這樣繁殖, 它會耗盡水中的氧。 一旦如此, 其它水中生物就無法生存。 那,我們要怎麼辦? 我們試著做出一種 會吃水藻的機器人, 吃光水藻又很安全。
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.
所以這是第一個問題。 第二個問題也是我們的傑作, 它跟油的汙染有關。 油從我們使用的引擎、 船隻中釋放出來。 有時候油輪會把油排放到海洋, 所以油就這樣流到海裡。 這樣不是很好? 如果我們可以想辦法用機器人 吃掉油田產生的汙染物? 所以那就是我們做的。 我們製造能吃汙染物的機器人。
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.
要實際製造出機器人, 我們從兩種生物取得靈感。 你看到右邊的那張是姥鯊。 姥鯊是一種大型鯊魚。 牠並非肉食性, 所以你可以跟牠一起游泳, 就像你在這裡看到的。 姥鯊張開嘴巴, 游過水裡,收集浮游生物。 這麼做的同時,牠消化食物, 然後利用在體內 產生的能量繼續活動。 所以,我們能不能做 像那樣的機器人── 像姥鯊一樣可以在水中徐徐前進, 然後吃掉汙染物? 嗯,我們來看看能不能做到。 我們也從其它生物獲取靈感。 我這裡有一張水椿的照片, 水椿真的很可愛。 當它游水時, 就用船槳般的腿將自己推向前。
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.
所以我們取兩者所長 結合在一起,做成一種新型機器人。 事實上,因為我們從水椿得到靈感, 而且我們的機器人坐在水上, 它會划行, 我們就叫它「划水機器人」。 所以划水機器人是會划水的機器人。 好,那它長什麼樣子? 這裡有一些划水機器人的照片, 你們看, 它一點都不像我們 一開始看到的機器人。 所以谷歌錯了, 機器人不像那樣, 它們像這樣。
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.
我這裡有一隻划水機器人。 我拿起來給你們看。 讓你們了解一下它的大小, 而且它跟其它的都不像。 好,它是塑膠做的, 現在我們來看一下 划水機器人的組件── 使它特別的地方。
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 --
划水機器人由三個部分組成, 這三個部分真的很像任何生物的部分。 它有個頭腦, 它有身體, 而且它有胃。 它需要胃以產生能量。 任何划水機器人都有這三個組件, 就像任何生物都有這三個部分一樣。 我們就一個個來看。 它有身體, 它的身體由塑膠製成, 而且它可以坐在水面上。 它的蹼在旁邊這裡── 幫助它移動, 就像水椿一樣。 它有個塑膠的身體, 而這裡有一張軟橡膠做的嘴, 這裡還有另一張嘴── 它有兩張嘴。 會什麼要兩張嘴? 一張讓食物進來, 另一張讓食物出去。 所以你們可以看到它有嘴有臀, 或是說 ──
(Laughter)
東西排出去的地方,
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.
就像真的生物一樣。 所以它開始看起來像那個姥鯊了。 這是身體。
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.
第二個部分可能是胃。 我們必須讓要處理污染的 機器人得到能量, 所以汙染從這裡進, 它會搞一下。 中間這裡有個電池, 稱作微生物燃料電池。 我把這個放下來, 把這個燃料電池拿起來。 這裡沒有電池, 也不用是傳統的電力系統, 它有一個這個。 這是它的胃。 它真的是一個胃, 因為你可以把能量放在這邊, 以汙染物的形式, 它產生電力。
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.
所以這是什麼? 這稱為微生物燃料電池。 這跟化學燃料電池有點像。 你大概在學校看過, 或者在新聞裡看過。 化學燃料電池利用氫及氧, 把兩者結合你就得到電力。 這是成熟的技術; 在阿波羅太空計畫裡就有了。 那是四、五十年前。 這個比較新。 這是微生物燃料電池。 運用同樣的原理: 氧氣在一邊, 但是另一邊不是氫氣, 而是一種混和液, 在這種混和液中有活的微生物。 如果你拿一些有機材料── 可以是某種廢料,食物, 或許拿一點你的三明治 ── 你把它放在這裡面, 微生物會吃這個食物, 然後把食物轉化成電力。 不僅如此,如果你選對微生物的種類, 你還可以用微生物燃料電池 處理一些污染。 如果你選對微生物, 微生物會吃藻類。 如果你用其它種微生物, 它們能吃石油醚及原油。 所以你們可以看到怎麼使用這個胃, 不只處理污染, 還能從污染產生電力。 所以這個機器人會在環境中移動, 把食物吃進胃裡, 消化吃進的食物,產生電力, 再用產生的電在環境中移動, 如此週而復始。
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.
好,那我們來看看 划水機器人工作的樣子 ── 當它划的時候。 這裡我們有幾段影片, 你們看到的第一件事, 希望大家都看得到, 是張開嘴巴。 前嘴和後嘴都張開, 它會一直張大嘴, 然後機器人會開始向前划。 它在水中移動, 所以食物進去,廢物出來。 當它移動夠了, 就會停止,然後閉上嘴巴── 慢慢閉上嘴── 然後坐在那裡, 開始消化食物。
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.
當然這些微生物燃料電池 裡面有微生物。 你真的想要的是很多能量 從這些微生物得到,愈快愈好。 但是我們不能強迫微生物, 而且它們每秒產生很少量的電力。 它們生產毫瓦或微瓦電力。 我們多解釋一下。 譬如說你的手機, 像這種現代一點的, 如果你使用它,它需要一瓦。 所以手機使用的能量 是微生物燃料電池的 一千或一百萬倍。 我們怎麼應付這個情況? 嗯,划水機器人消化完食物後, 當它吃了食物, 它會坐在那裡, 直到食物都消化完為止。 那要花好幾個小時,甚至好幾天。 划水機器人典型的 工作循環週期像這樣: 你打開嘴巴, 你移動, 你閉上嘴巴, 然後坐在那裡等。 一旦你消化完食物, 就可以起來再繼續做相同的事。 但是你知道嗎,這看起來 很像真的生物,不是嗎? 它跟我們做的事很像。 星期六晚上,我們出門,張嘴, 把胃填滿, 坐在電視機前面消化。 我們覺得夠了,又開始做同樣的事。
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.
好,如果這次循環很幸運, 在循環結束後 我們會有足夠的剩餘能量, 讓我們能做別的事。 例如,我們可送個簡訊。 我們可送個簡訊說: 「這是我最近吃掉的污染量;」 或是,「這是我最近碰到的東西;」 或是,「我現在在什麼地方。」 能傳送簡訊說「我現在在什麼地方」, 是非常非常重要的事。 如果你們想一下 我們以前看到的水面油汙畫面, 或非常大片的藻華, 你真正想做的是 把你的划水機器人送到那裡, 把汙染物吃光光, 然後你得去把它們收回來。 為什麼? 因為眼下這些划水機器人, 和我這裡的這隻划水機器人, 裡面有馬達、有線路, 裡面有生物不能分解的原件。 當下的划水機器人裡面包含 有毒的電池等東西。 你不能把這些留在環境中, 所以你必須追蹤它們在哪裡, 在它們完成工作之後, 你必須收回它們。 這會限制你能使用的 划水機器人數量。 另一方面, 如果你的機器人有一點像生物體, 在生命結束時, 它會死亡且分解無形。
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.
那不是很好嗎?如果這些機器人 不像現在由塑膠製成, 而是用其它的材料, 當你把它們丟在外面, 它們就在那裡分解於無形。 這會改變我們使用機器人的方法。 與其放 10 或 100 個 機器人到環境中, 要追蹤它們, 而且它們死掉以後, 還要收回來, 你可以放一千個, 一百萬個,十億個這種 機器人到環境中。 把它們散到四處。 你知道在它們壽終時 將會分解至無形。 你不需要擔心它們。 那樣會改變你對機器人的想法, 以及你派遣它們的方式。
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.
隨之而來的問題是: 你真的可以做得到嗎? 是的,我們已經讓你看到的確可以。 你可以製造可生物分解的機器人。 真正有意思的是, 你可以用生活常見的材料 來製造這種可生物分解的機器人。 我給大家看幾個; 你們可能會很驚訝。 你可以用果凍做機器人。 代替目前機器人用的馬達, 你可以用人工肌肉。 人工肌肉是一種智慧型材料, 你把它們接上電, 它們會收縮、彎曲或扭轉。 它們看起來就像真的肌肉。 所以與其使用馬達, 還不如用人工肌肉。 你可以用果凍做人工肌肉。 如果你可以拿果凍加點鹽, 然後東搞搞西弄弄, 就可以做出人工肌肉。
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.
我們已經讓大家看到可以用紙 做微生物燃料電池的胃。 因此你可以用生物分解材料 做整個機器人。 你把它們丟出去, 它們將會自己分解。
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.
這真的超興奮。 這會完全改變我們對機器人的想法, 也讓你變得非常有創意, 想出很多機器人的用途。 我舉一個例子。 如果你能用果凍做機器人── 我們都吃果凍對吧? 那,為什麼不用這個 做像這樣的東西? 熊軟糖機器人。 這裡,我準備了幾個。 在這裡,我有個袋子── 我拿了一個檸檬口味的。 我拿這個熊軟糖── 這不是機器人,好嗎? 我們要假裝一下。 你要拿它做什麼? 放到你的嘴巴裡── 檸檬口味不錯。 不要嚼太大力,這是機器人, 它可能不喜歡那樣。 然後吞下去。 然後它就跑到你的胃裡。 它在你的胃裡移動、 思考、扭動、彎曲, 做一些事。 然後它繼續跑到你的腸道, 看看你有沒有潰瘍或癌症, 或許順便打個針,諸如此類。 你知道一旦它做完工作後, 就會被你的胃消化, 如果你不要那樣, 它還可以直接通過你, 掉進馬桶, 在環境中安全分解。 所以再說一次, 這會改變我們對機器人的想法。
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.
我們從可以吃汙染的機器人開始看, 然後我們看到可以吃掉機器人。 我希望這能給大家一點靈感, 看看我們能如何使用 未來的機器人。
Thank you very much for your attention.
謝謝大家!
(Applause)
(掌聲)