The underwater locomotion for this robotic ‘turtle’ is just so uncanny and amazing. Watch the video of this unit’s ability to bank on a curve, swim upside down and navigate in a straight line through the water:
Finnegan is the name given to this roboturtle which turns out to be quite an agile and aggressively maneuvering biomimetic autonomous underwater vehicle, propelled entirely with biologically inspired oscillating foils. The goal of biomimetic robotics is to observe, adapt and apply the design and behavior of biological examples (such as turtles!) to improve the performance of human-designed devices. Biomimetic propulsion and oscillating foils in particular, have been extensively studied as a possible means for improvement of underwater vehicle agility and maneuverability.
The objective of this particular project was to prove the ability of rolling and twisting foils to improve the maneuvering performance of underwater craft as defined by the turning radius and turning rate at speed, while simultaneously providing the agility to control six degrees of freedom at low speed in confined space.
In developing the roboturtle, the doctoral students at MIT took advantage of the growing body of knowledge into the dynamics of fish, bird, reptile and mammal swimming strategies to extend the state of the art in underwater vehicles. And the motion looks so real!
Filed under: robot sea creatures | Tagged: autonomous robotics, biology-inspired design, biomimetic, Finnegan, robotic turtle, roboturtle
This is my personal favorite. It is really great to see how the technology is progressing in the biomimetic field. We have so much to learn from nature. Before I built my submarine Faux Fish I did a lot of research on swimming robots and it is amazing to see how many more papers there are now on the subject. I will be building a human -powered jellyfish for my next project and hopefully will be able to add a little more to the knowledge bank in this field.