An underwater reconfigurable robot with bioinspired electric sense

Abstract

International audience— Morphology, perception and locomotion are three key features highly interdependent in robotics. This paper gives an overview of an underwater modular robotic platform equipped with a bio-inspired electric sense. The platform is reconfigurable in the sense that it can split into independent rigid modules and vice-versa. Composed of 9 modules, the longer entity can swim like an eel over long distances, while once detached, each of its modules is efficient for small displacements with a high accuracy. Challenges are to mechanically ensure the morphology changes and to do it automatically. Electric sense is used to guide the modules during docking phases and to navigate in unknown scenes. Several aspects of the design of the robot are described and a particular attention is paid to the inter-module docking system. The feasibility of the design is assessed through experiments

Modular Hydraulic Propulsion: A robot that moves by routing fluid through itself

“…For only a few systems, modules operate freely in 3-D environments, such as in fluids [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16] or in the air [17]. The modular structures they form, however, are either 1-D [10], [13], [16], 2-D [17], or not selfpropelling [11], [12], [14], [15]. To our knowledge, at present no modular robot platform supports 3-D structures that selfpropel freely in 3-D.…”

“…The robots swim by using actuated joints to oscillate limbs in a similar manner to that of humans. Mintchev et al [16] present a chain-type modular system with two modes of locomotion. When acting individually, modules use propellers to translate and rotate.…”

Efficient Modelling Methodology for Reconfigurable Underwater Robots

“…From a reconfiguration point-of-view work has mainly focused on modularity in the physical sense. An underwater platform with docking capability to offload data between a sensor network and an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) was presented in Vasilescu et al (2005), and Mintchev et al (2012Mintchev et al ( , 2014 presented a system of anguilliform AUVs with the ability of docking to each other, utilising passive magnets to align the vehicles for docking. The system resulting from physically coupling and de-coupling of the vehicles is a multi-body system with dynamic topology.…”

Biomimetic and bio-inspired robotics in electric fish research

“…Future versions of Ghostbot that integrate electrosense will benefit from the rigid body simplification, as well as minimize electrosensory interference from the moving fin by maximizing sensory acuity in regions away from the movement of the fin, as found in the live fish (Snyder et al, 2007). The ANGELS project combines electrosense with anguilliform swimming (Mintchev et al, 2012). The ANGELS robotic design is made of independently actuated modules that can combine together to undulate through the water over longer distances.…”