Reporter | Xu Ning Edit |
Most bionic underwater robots are made by simulating the swimming principles of tuna, carp and other fish. But such bionic robots are rarely able to swim vertically.
In recent years, jellyfish, with their efficient and flexible jet propulsion methods, have gradually become the object of imitation by biomimeticists.
According to the industry public robot lecture hall, a few days ago, Yonas tadesse, a researcher at the University of Texas at Dallas, and others, developed a bionic jellyfish soft robot that can swim quickly vertically and has a certain load.
The motion mechanism of the bionic jellyfish soft robot is to generate a reaction force by spraying fluid downwards, pushing it to move vertically in the water environment.
The researchers equipped the robot with eight state-of-the-art inflatable flexible pneumatic compound actuators arranged radially and powered by an air compressor.
The composite actuator consists of a single chamber and a thin spring steel sheet on the outer layer. The main material of the chamber is silicone resin.
The outer layer of spring steel is a non-stretchable material, but has a good rebound effect. When a force acts on one end of the sheet and is suddenly released, the sheet can quickly retract to its original position.
The researchers designed the composite actuators in a pattern with thick sides and thin tops to maximize the entry of air into the chamber.
By injecting air into the compressor, the actuator can expand and bend rapidly, generating a large instantaneous thrust for rapid movement in the vertical direction.
After testing, the bionic jellyfish soft robot with a diameter of 220 mm can withstand a load of 100 grams in the fish tank and swim vertically at a speed of 16 cm/s.
Jonas said that compared to the previous bionic jellyfish robot, the vertical rise rate of this robot is the fastest.
In addition to military surveillance, the robot can also be used for underwater rapid rescue, seabed exploration, resource exploration, underwater terrain survey and other aspects in the future.
Compared with traditional rigid robots, soft robots are generally made of flexible materials with greater variability, which can achieve large-scale continuous deformation and arbitrarily change their size and shape. Therefore, soft robots are also regarded by the industry as the future of robotics.
Previously, scientists have taken a lot of inspiration from jellyfish.
According to the Global Network, in July last year, the British magazine "Natural Communication" published a latest study, Metin Sitti of the Max Planck Intelligent Systems Research Institute in Germany and his colleagues invented a soft robot inspired by the disc-shaped juvenile of a bowl jellyfish.
The soft robot is 6 mm long, has 8 brachiopods, the tip is made of non-magnetic polymers, and the whole body is buried with magnetic particles.
The researchers placed the robot inside the water tank and enclosed an electromagnetic coil around the outside of the water tank. As long as the magnetic field is manipulated, it can wirelessly control its brachiopod contraction and then recover, just like a swimming jellyfish.
This cableless soft robot is small in size, but it has functions such as transportation and drilling.
In January, researchers at the California Institute of Technology and Stanford University also invented a miniature electronic cyborg jellyfish, according to the Advanced Science News.
John Dabiri, a professor at Stanford University who led the research group, said that a lot of research has now shifted to developing biomimetic robots that mimic organisms, but equipping the organisms themselves with electronic components is also a new way of biomimetic robot research.
The Stanford researchers equipped the jellyfish with a microelectronic controller that can send out electrical impulses, as if a pacemaker had been installed.
After testing, jellyfish equipped with microelectronic controllers have a pulse frequency three times that of ordinary jellyfish. This increases the swimming speed of jellyfish from the original 2 cm/s to 4-6 cm/s.
The Stanford researchers said the study is still in its infancy and hopes to develop an electronic device small enough to be embedded in jellyfish tissue in the future. In addition to controlling its swimming speed, it can also control its direction of movement, which can be applied to ocean exploration.