Scientists at the University of Bristol have relied on the design and existence of a mystery zooplankton to construct underwater robots. These robotic units termed RoboSalps, after their animal namesakes, have been built to function in unknown and severe settings such as extra-terrestrial seas.
Although salps resemble jellyfish with their semi-transparent barrel-shaped bodies, they belong to the family of Tunicata and have a complicated life cycle, alternating between solitary and aggregate generations where they unite to create colonies. RoboSalps have similarly light, tubular bodies and can attach to one other to establish “colonies” which offers them additional skills that can only be obtained when they work together.
Researcher Valentina Lo Gatto of Bristol’s Department of Aerospace Engineering is heading the investigation. She is also a student at the EPSRC Center of Doctoral Training in Future Autonomous and Robotic Systems (FARSCOPE CDT) (FARSCOPE CDT).
She remarked, “RoboSalp is the first modular salp-inspired robot. Each module is built of an extremely lightweight soft tube construction and a drone propeller which allows them to swim. These basic modules may be merged into ‘colonies’ that are significantly more resilient and have the capacity to execute out complicated tasks. Because of their low weight and their resilience, they are excellent for extra-terrestrial underwater research missions, for example, in the subsurface ocean on the Jupiter moon Europa.”
RoboSalps are unusual since each individual module can swim on its own. This is achievable because of a tiny motor with rotor blades—typically used for drones—inserted inside the soft tubular framework. When swimming on their own, RoboSalps modules are difficult to manage, but when linking them together to create colonies, they become more stable and demonstrate complex motions.
In addition, by having numerous units coupled together, scientists automatically have a redundant system, which makes it more durable against failure. If one module fails, the entire colony may still migrate. A colony of soft robots is a relatively fresh notion with a broad variety of potential applications. RoboSalps are soft, possibly extremely energy efficient, and durable owing to intrinsic redundancy. This makes them excellent for autonomous missions when a direct and quick human control may not be practicable.
Dr. Helmut Hauser of Bristol’s Department of Engineering Math, noted, “These include the study of isolated undersea settings, sewage tunnels, and industrial cooling systems. Due to the low weight and softness of the RoboSalp modules, they are also excellent for extra-terrestrial missions. They can readily be kept in a smaller volume, excellent for decreasing global space mission payloads.”
A compliant body also offers safer contact with potentially fragile ecosystems, both on earth and extra-terrestrial, minimising the chance of environmental harm. The option to remove units or segments, and rearrange them, offers the system adaptability: once the desired area is reached, the colony might be deployed to start its exploration.
At a particular point, it may divide into many pieces, each exploring in a different direction, and afterwards reassembling in a new configuration to fulfil a different aim such as manipulation or sample collecting.
Prof. Jonathan Rossiter remarked, “We are also developing control systems that are able to leverage the compliance of the modules with the objective of obtaining energy efficient motions akin to those found in biological salps.”
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