Researchers have developed an aquatic robot that will make it extremely difficult for smugglers to hide contraband in the hulls of ships.

With a shape akin to a somewhat distorted bowling ball, the 3-D printed device can be made for around $600 as a much less expensive way to inspect ships at port, Engadget reported via MIT News.

"It's very expensive for port security to use traditional robots for every small boat coming into the port," Sampriti Bhattacharyya, a graduate student in mechanical engineering, said in a statement. "If this is cheap enough--if I can get this out for $600, say--why not just have 20 of them doing collaborative inspection? And if it breaks, it's not a big deal. It's very easy to make."

Bhattacharyya, who designed the robot together with her adviser, Ford Professor of Engineering Harry Asada, built the device using a 3-D printer. Half of the robot is waterproof to hold the electronics, while the other half is permeable and houses the six pumps that make up the device's propulsion system.

"It's very similar to fighter jets, which are made unstable so that you can maneuver them easily," Bhattacharyya explained the robot's design. "If I turn on the two jets [at one end], it won't go straight. It will just turn."

The researchers have been testing the robot's ability to navigate to specific places under water. Its waterproof chamber houses control circuitry, its battery, a communications antenna and an inertial measurement unit, said the MIT news release.

The prototype uses lithium-ion batteries for power that lasts about 40 minutes. Next, the researchers plan to add wirelessly rechargeable batteries for 100 minutes of operation time as well as an ultrasound sensor.

The oval-shaped robot has exciting implications for future technology, said Nathan Betcher, a special-tactics officer in the U.S. Air Force, who has been following the new research closely.

"I have a great deal of interest in seeing if this type of technology can have a substantive impact on a number of missions or roles which I might be charged with in the future," Betcher said in a statement. "I am particularly interested to see if this type of technology could find use in domestic maritime operations ranging from the detection of smuggled nuclear, biological or chemical agents to drug interdiction, discovery of stress fractures in submerged structures and hulls, or even faster processing and routing of maritime traffic."

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