The first robotic fish for environmental monitoring in seas, rivers and lakes around the world will be tested in Gijón the middle of next year, particularly in waters close to the tip of the Prince of Asturias breakwater and the beach of El Arbeyal, as announced Yesterday Ian Dukes, one of the researchers at the University of Essex (UK) participating in the Anglo-Gallic scientific team working on the development of this probe underwater pollution, an invention that has attracted considerable international interest.

The fish robot which will be tested in the Musel weighs twenty-five kilos and measured five feet, a size three times the known prototypes, which were built for the London Aquarium. Why Access to this test of many departments that are pending around the world specializing in environmental monitoring? Your Port Authority participates in several European programs, including SHOAL, which fall with the probe investigations underwater.

The project, to develop in three years, was launched in London last March and has a budget of 4.2 million. The consortium involving, besides the Port and the universities of Essex, Strathclyde and Cork, France's Thales and British Maritime Technologies Safar (BMT). Next to Dukes (University of Essex), and accompanied by Humberto Moyano, Port Authority of Gijon, Gijon visited yesterday the premises to monitor test sites of the robotic fish researchers also Luke Speller (BMT), Mathieu Barbeger and Christian Lachaize The last two Thales Safar.

The international buzz has built these tests is justified because this tube that looks and moves like a fish, and chemical sensors equipped with wi-fi, is capable of making chemical and biological analysis of water immediately. "No need, as now, wait a month and a half to see the results, is efficient and cheap, 'said Dukes. Each unit will cost about 25,000 euros. After taking the first fish robot ready in mid 2010, the forecast is to have four more units a year later, in 2011. "There are many ports interested in the results," added the researcher Essex. Some people say that the new probe underwater will save European basins totaling 350 million a year, the amount now spent on the control of toxic discharges. Their work will be very important, for example, in prevention.

No vessel may release pollutants without any corresponding corrective. You can become a powerful new "patrol". That at least is the hope of those who support the project. The first models were developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the nineties.

Dukes said the new prototype to test in Gijon water improvement, even the technological quality of the sugar used in the London Aquarium, with a look similar to carp. Combining robotics, artificial intelligence or rapid chemical analysis.