Bizarre swimming robot was inspired by manta rays: video
The fastest-ever swimming soft robot has been inspired by manta rays.A team of American researchers beat its own speed record by drawing inspiration from the iconic sea creatures to improve their ability to control the robot’s movement in the water.The record-breaking robot has fins shaped like those of a manta ray and is made of a material that is stable when the fins are spread wide. Study corresponding author Professor Jie Yin, of North Carolina State University, said: “Two years ago, we demonstrated an aquatic soft robot that was able to reach average speeds of 3.74 body lengths per second.“We have improved on that design.Our new soft robot is more energy efficient and reaches a speed of 6.8 body lengths per second,” Yin continued.
“In addition, the previous model could only swim on the surface of the water,” he said.“Our new robot is capable of swimming up and down throughout the water column.”He explained that the robot’s fins are attached to a flexible, silicone body that contains a chamber that can be pumped full of air. Inflating the air chamber forces the fins to bend – similar to the down stroke when a manta flaps its fins. When the air is let out of the chamber, the fins spontaneously snap back into their initial position. Study first author Haitao Qing, a Ph.D.
student at North Carolina State University, said: “Pumping air into the chamber introduces energy into the system.“The fins want to return to their stable state, so releasing the air also releases the energy in the fins,” Qing explained. “That means we only need one actuator for the robot and allows for more rapid actuation.”The research team, whose achievement was described in the journal Science Advances, said that studying the fluid dynamics of manta rays also played a key role in controlling the vertical movement of the robot.Study co-author Jiacheng Guo, a Ph.D.
student at the University of Virginia, said: “We observed the swimming motion of manta ra...