Creating flexible underwater robots

Underwater structures that can change their shapes dynamically, similar to fish, can push through water much more efficiently than those with conventional rigid hulls. Constructing deformable devices that can change the curve of their body shapes while maintaining a smooth profile is a long and difficult process. But researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and their colleagues have devised an innovative approach to building deformable underwater robots using simple, repeating substructures. 

The team has demonstrated the new system in two different example configurations, one like an eel and the other a winglike hydrofoil. The principle itself, however, allows for virtually unlimited variations in form and scale, the researchers say. Furthermore, the new modular system could easily be extended to much larger sizes. 

“Treating soft versus hard robotics is a false dichotomy,” MIT research assistant Alfonso Parra Rubio says. “This is something in between, a new way to construct things.”