Battery-free and wireless underwater camera to explore the ocean

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crean camara submarina sin pilas e inalambrica para explorar el oceano.jpg
crean camara submarina sin pilas e inalambrica para explorar el oceano.jpg

It is ironic to think about how man seems to have more knowledge about the depth of space than that related to the oceans.

And it is that, when it comes to the oceans, only 5% of its extension has been observed and explored.

This prompted a team of MIT engineers to take on the task of building a underwater camera without batteries for the purpose of carrying out the deep sea exploration.

Through this camera, the team of engineers hopes to be able to carry out surveillance tasks in this environment and report those cases of pollution and damage that may be caused by climate change.

Something that they focused on when making this camera is to make it stay underwater as long as possible, since changing the battery can be an expensive mission.

To do this, the researchers equipped the camera with a mechanism that allows it to harness ambient noise from the ocean to convert it into electricity and use it later to capture color images and transmit them to computers wirelessly without requiring batteries.

In this way, researchers may have the opportunity to lower the camera to places where regular recoveries are not necessary, thus helping to increase the chances of discovering new species.

When talking about the method used by the camera to obtain energy, this lies in the presence of piezoelectric materials capable of transforming the force applied to them into electricity. After having captured enough energy, the camera proceeds to capture the photos and transmit them.

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Added to this, the communication system is also powered by the energy coming from the piezoelectric materials that result thousands of times more efficient than conventional network technologies.

At the moment the camera can do its job at about 40 meters deepalthough researchers are working hard to enhance the capabilities of this device and ensure that it can descend to greater depths and function without difficulties.