Jelly-Z: swimming performance and analysis of twisted and coiled polymer (TCP) actuated jellyfish soft robot

Abstract

Monitoring, sensing, and exploration of over 70% of the Earth’s surface that is covered with water is permitted through the deployment of underwater bioinspired robots without affecting the natural habitat. To create a soft robot actuated with soft polymeric actuators, this paper describes the development of a lightweight jellyfish-inspired swimming robot, which achieves a maximum vertical swimming speed of 7.3 mm/s (0.05 body length/s) and is characterized by a simple design. The robot, named Jelly-Z, utilizes a contraction–expansion mechanism for swimming similar to the motion of a Moon jellyfish. The objective of this paper is to understand the behavior of soft silicone structure actuated by novel self-coiled polymer muscles in an underwater environment by varying stimuli and investigate the associated vortex for swimming like a jellyfish. To better understand the characteristics of this motion, simplified Fluid–structure simulation, and particle image velocimetry (PIV) tests were conducted to study the wake structure from the robot’s bell margin. The thrust generated by the robot was also characterized with a force sensor to ascertain the force and cost of transport (COT) at different input currents. Jelly-Z is the first robot that utilized twisted and coiled polymer fishing line (TCPFL) actuators for articulation of the bell and showed successful swimming operations. Here, a thorough investigation on swimming characteristics in an underwater setting is presented theoretically and experimentally. We found swimming metrics of the robot are comparable with other jellyfish-inspired robots that have utilized different actuation mechanisms, but the actuators used here are scalable and can be made in-house relatively easily, hence paving way for further advancements into the use of these actuators.

Design and development of a continuous water quality monitoring buoy for health monitoring of river Ganga

“…In future, the hydrodynamic model of the buoy will be studied with the mooring arrangements. The energy generated from the buoy can be used in powering underwater soft robots [65,66] for water quality monitoring of different in-line river streams. The measurement of wind and river flow, along with the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) motion data from different sensors placed on the buoy, will provide us with the necessary information to design a passive damper that could damp down the oscillations of the buoy in turbulent waters.…”

Recent Advances on Underwater Soft Robots

“…Reproduced under the terms of a CC‐BY license. [ 14,22,60,62,328 ] Copyright 2022, 2019, 2015, 2018, 2023, The Authors; published by Wiley‐VCH, Frontiers, Springer Nature, Mary Ann Liebert Inc., and Springer Nature, respectively.…”

HBS-1.2: Lightweight Socially Assistive Robot with 6-Ply Twisted Coiled Polymer Muscle-Actuated Hand

“…TCP muscles have significant benefits, including high force and actuation strain, lightweight, all polymer-based actuation, noise-free actuation, and high-energy density [12,13].These characteristics of TCP actuators, make them an attractive choice for developing soft robotic systems both on land and underwater. Their versatility and capabilities make them suitable for various applications, including crawling robots [14], underwater robotic systems such as robotic fish [15], and bio-inspired designs like robotic jellyfish [16][17][18]. In this article, we show the first-time implementation of 6-ply TCP muscles in a humanoid robot, To effectively provide health care services that complement health care workers and caregivers, SARs need to perform tasks that can assist elderly patients physically as well as support patients' cognitive and emotional health.…”