FORTH's OCTOBOT: Robotic swimmer with supple silicone web mimics octopus

Highlighting this month's news of developments in marine robotics: Researchers from the Computational Vision and Robotics Laboratory (CVRL) Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH) in Greece have worked out a way to mimic the movements of an octopus.

The robot, which swims and crawls, is inspired by the morphology and very able locomotor capabilities of the octopus.

The octopus of their creation, which is being described by various sites as the octobot or "robotic swimmer," among other terms, propels itself underwater either alone of interconnected via a passively compliant web, said the team.

Their study, "Multi-Arm Robotic Swimming with Octopus-Inspired Compliant Web," was prepared for this year's IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems in Chicago.

They used flexible silicone webbing, which served them well. The authors said, "Speeds of 0.5 body lengths per second and propulsive forces of up to 10.5 N were achieved, with a cost of transport as low as 0.62."

Evan Ackerman reported Wednesday in IEEE Spectrum that the research reflects a success story where the team last year reported they were working on adding another physical feature in the version of the octopus: a web between tentacles, which they said might help swimming speed or efficiency.

"Now the researchers report that the addition of a soft and supple silicone web has nearly doubled the speed of the roboctopus, and not satisfied with that, the scientists have also taught it to crawl, carry objects, and swim free in the Aegean Sea," said Ackerman.

By contrast, reported Meghan Rosen in Science News, their webless version had shown it could propel itself at up to 100 millimeters per second, slowly opening stiff plastic arms, then snapping them together.

This year's robotic swimmer, with arms and a web made of soft silicone, swam at up to 180 millimeters per second.

"The web helps the octobot generate more force," wrote Rosen, "so it can push through water faster than using arms alone."

Credit: D. Tsakiris /Institute of Computer Science /FORTH

What benefits could result from this type of research?

Team member and computer scientist Dimitris Tsakiris said the creation may support biologists' attempts to observe marine ecosystems.

"We want to put a camera on it and see what we can do," he said in Science News.

Another bit of encouraging news about their work is that other sea creatures did not appear to be frightened off at the sight of the robot swimmer.

Tsakiris said the faux octopus was taken out for a swim in the Mediterranean and tiny fish tagged along.

Squid turn skin into living jewels

Lots of animals have sparkly skin, but squid are one of few that can change the colour of their shimmer.

Now Trevor Wardill and colleagues at the Marine Biology Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, are getting new insight into how they do it by zapping their skin with electricity.

In this video, iridescent patches of skin change hue when nerves near the fin are stimulated. The signal travels through a network of nerves in the skin, allowing the squid to cycle through a range of hues from blue to red in about 15 seconds.

They also change colour via a similar mechanism that alters pigment-containing cells, but the animals are able to display different opaque hues much faster.

The experiment shows that rather than being a local reflex, the central nervous system controls changes in shimmer. But how squid pick and maintain their skin colour is still a mystery.

The hue of the shimmer helps the animals camouflage themselves - but they are colour blind, so scientists are puzzled by how they know they've got it right.

Octopus-like Submersible Robot crawling and the OmniBoat - YouTube

The Octo-Bot
It looks like robotic jellyfish won’t be the only soft robots exploring the seas. The Octopus Project, funded by the European Commission, is studying octopus movement and incorporating it into design and robotic technologies.

This iteration of the project is an eight-armed, submersible robot. The two large tentacles use a soft robotics technology powered by heat, while the six smaller tentacles use a system of steel and nylon cables to re-create octopuslike motion.

Why focus on the octopus? The real-life version offers a great example of a soft structure with advanced motor skills that can grasp objects, move around, change shape, and much more.

Researchers behind project hope to create new technologies by mimicking everything an octopus can do—so if all goes well, we might soon have a robot predicting soccer game winners.

Via IEEE Spectrum.



The Water Strider Bot
While octopi and jellyfish swim around underwater, this Lego “Omniboat” can skim the surface above.

The designer of this bot, Vimal Patel, built the center of the boat with Legos and keeps them afloat with Lego water bottles.

The setup even has a camera on board. Patel used another Lego pontoon to film parts of the video above.

The next step, we hope, is getting face-to-face footage of the ducks in the pond.

Via DVICE.

SEA Photography: Visual Poetry

From photographer Mark Laita, whose superb “parallel portraits” of subcultures you might recall, comes Sea — a masterful piece of visual poetry.

It captures the creatures of the deep with equal parts cutting-edge photographic technique and imaginative whimsy, to explore the extraordinary wonderland that lives beneath the surface of the world’s water.

From iridescent jellyfish to playful sea horses to prepossessing but deadly puffer fish, the 104 images in the collection reveal the astounding grace, colours, and personalities of these marine characters with unprecedented artistry and passion.

North Pacific Giant Octopus

Blue Blubber Jellyfish

Golden Butterfly

Green Chromis

Humpback Anglerfish

Red Feather Starfish

Blue Spot Stingray

Miniatus Grouper

Full review, along with more images, here.

Robotic octopus muscle power!