Scientists Have Developed Four Times Faster Swimming Robots

Dec, 2022 - By WMR

Inspired by a marine animal Manta Ray, scientists have succeeded in developing a more energy efficient and four times faster swimming robots than the last one.

Robots have changed the way technology is used in day to day life. They are used in variety of fields such as manufacturing, transport, surgery, laboratory research, mass production etc. They have entire changed the way an industry works by bringing speed, efficiency and accuracy to the production. History of robots dates back to centuries ago when Greek god Hephaestus had developed mechanical servants for him. Since then large evolution has taken place in the field of robots.

Now inspired from the biomechanics of the manta ray, researchers have succeeded in developing an energy efficient swimming soft robot which is capable of swimming four times faster than previous swimming robots. Marine animals such as manta ray are fast swimmers and the idea of a faster swimming robot was derived from them. The design of this robot also resembles the structure of Manta Ray. These robots are named as butterfly robots because they resemble the swimming motion of a person performing butterfly stroke, a popular method of swimming in human beings. Butterfly robot gets the power required to swim from its wings which is similar to snap hair clip in structure.

Swimming robots are used in human induced ecological disaster which are responsible for affecting aquatic environment. They can be used for survey and repairing of underwater structures such as oil fields and dam. They can also test environment ranging from a bucket of water to a swimming pool or a lake or pond. This development of building a more energy efficient and faster swimming robot will make the robot complete larger number of tasks under water with less amount of time.