This Squid Robot Swims Freely In The Water On Its Own

US engineers build a robot that can be used for underwater exploration. The robot looks similar to the squid you often see on Discovery Channel.

Over the years, we have seen many ships and submarines in similar duties but the squid robot is a much smaller version that can be remotely controlled throughout its mission. It swims freely with no attached cables, it moves forward by generating jets of water.

The robot has been designed not to cause any harm to coral and fish as it explores the water. It’s basically a soft robot made from materials like acrylic polymer, along with some laser-cut and 3D printed parts.

Basically, it functions as a big pump to swim underwater. After taking an amount of water to lay up elastic energy inside the body, the robot depletes this energy by compressing the body. As a result, the entire robot moves forward and it directs itself.

The use of soft materials helps the squid robot avoid maneuvering and keep a high speed. But it also implements the jet, which allows it to keep up with all types of aquatic invertebrates.

“Essentially, we recreated all the key features that squids use for high-speed swimming. This is the first untethered robot that can generate jet pulses for rapid locomotion like the squid and can achieve these jet pulses by changing its body shape, which improves swimming efficiency.”

Last year, a team of scientists from multiple colleges and universities including Havard created a jellyfish-like robot with ultra-soft robotic hand to pick up samples from underwater. In the long term, such soft robots will help us perform delicate tasks in areas that are hard to reach or dangerous to reach for humans.

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