This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

Researchers have created an aquatic soft robot inspired by marine invertebrates called feather stars. The feather star robot is able to move through the water in all three dimensions, powered by only two actuators. The paper, "Minimal-Actuation Feather Star–Inspired Soft Swimmers for Multimodal 3D Maneuverability," is published in the journal Science Advances.

"One exciting aspect of this work is that it demonstrates how we can create robotic devices with an incredible range of motion using a minimum number of actuators, by taking advantage of intelligent design techniques," says Jie Yin, corresponding author of a paper on the work and a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University. Actuators are the parts of a machine that provide force or torque.

The feather star robot's design draws on a concept called mechanical intelligence. This refers to dynamic objects—like robots—whose behavior is governed largely by their structure and how they interact with their environment, reducing the amount of input necessary from computers or human users.

"In this case, we created an aquatic soft robot that can move in three dimensions—up and down, forward and backward, and rotating on its axis," Yin says. "Normally, you would need at least six actuators to accomplish this. But due to its structural design, we accomplish this range of motion with only two actuators in the feather star robot.

Source link