A Versatile Jellyfish-Like Robotic Platform for Effective Underwater Propulsion and Manipulation

2023

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Underwater devices are critical for environmental applications. However, existing prototypes typically use bulky, noisy actuators and limited configurations. Consequently, they struggle to ensure noise-free and gentle interactions with underwater species when realizing practical functions. Therefore, we developed a jellyfish-like robotic platform enabled by a synergy of electrohydraulic actuators and a hybrid structure of rigid and soft components. Our 16-cm-diameter noise-free prototype could control the fluid flow to propel while manipulating objects to be kept beneath its body without physical contact, thereby enabling safer interactions. Its against-gravity speed was up to 6.1 cm/s, substantially quicker than other examples in literature, while only requiring a low input power of around 100 mW. Moreover, using the platform, we demonstrated contact-based object manipulation, fluidic mixing, shape adaptation, steering, wireless swimming, and cooperation of two to three robots. This study introduces a versatile jellyfish-like robotic platform with a wide range of functions for diverse applications.

@article{Joo23-SCIA-Jellyfish,
  title = {A Versatile Jellyfish-Like Robotic Platform for Effective Underwater Propulsion and Manipulation},
  author = {Wang, Tianlu and Joo, Hyeong-Joon and Song, Shanyuan and Hu, Wenqi and Keplinger, Christoph and Sitti, Metin},
  journal = {Science Advances},
  volume = {9},
  number = {15},
  publisher = {American Association for the Advancement of Science},
  month = apr,
  year = {2023},
  note = {Tianlu Wang and Hyeong-Joon Joo contributed equally to this work.},
  doi = {doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adg0292},
  url = {https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/sciadv.adg0292},
  month_numeric = {4}
}