Sea creatures inspire marine robots designed to operate in extraterrestrial oceans

Scientists at the University of Bristol drew on the design and life of a mysterious zooplankton to develop underwater robots.

These robotic units are called RoboSalps, after their animal names, which have been designed to work in unknown places and harsh environment such as the extraterrestrial oceans.

Although jellyfish-like salps with semi-transparent barrel-shaped bodies, they belong to the Tunicata family and have a complex life cycle, varying between solitary and assemblage generations where they connect to form populations.

RoboSalps have similarly lightweight, tubular bodies and can link together to form “colonies” giving them new abilities that can only be achieved when they work together.

Researcher Valentina Lo Gatto of Bristol’s Department of Aerospace Engineering is leading the study. She is also a pupil at the EPSRC Future Robotics and Autonomous Systems Doctoral Training Center (FARSCOPE CDT).

She said, “RoboSalp is the first salp-inspired modular robot. Each module is made of a very light-weight flexible tubular structure and a drone propeller that makes them swim-able. These simple modules can be combined into ‘colonies’ that are more powerful and capable of performing complex tasks.Due to their low weight and durability, they are ideal for extraterrestrial underwater exploration missions, such as in the subsurface ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa.”

RoboSalp is unique because each individual module can swim on its own. This is possible because of a small engine with propeller— commonly used for drones — fitted into a flexible tubular structure.

When swimming on their own, the RoboSalps modules are difficult to control, but after combining them together to form colonies, they become more stable and exhibit delicate movements.

In addition, by combining multiple units together, scientists automatically have a backup system, making it stronger against breakdowns. If one module break, the whole colony can still move.

A swarm of soft robots is a relatively new concept with many interesting applications. RoboSalp is soft, potentially quite energy efficient, and powerful due to inherent redundancy. This makes them ideal for autonomous missions where direct and immediate human control may not be feasible.

Dr Helmut Hauser of the University of Bristol’s Department of Engineering Mathematics, explains: “These activities include exploring remote submarine environments, sewage tunnels and industrial cooling systems. The RoboSalp are low in weight and soft so they are also ideal for outdoor ground missions.They can easily be stored in a reduced volume, ideal for reducing the payload of space missions. Global.”

A compliant body also provides safer interactions with potentially sensitive ecosystems, both terrestrial and extraterrestrial, reducing the risk of environmental damage. The ability to separate units or segments and rearrange them, giving the system the ability to adapt: ​​once the target environment is reached, colony can be deployed to initiate exploration.

At a given time, it can split into multiple shards, each exploring in a different direction, and then regrouping in a new configuration to achieve a different goal, such as manipulating or collecting data. sample collection.

Professor Jonathan Rossiter added: “We are also developing control methods capable of exploiting the compliance of the modules with the goal of achieving energy-efficient movements close to those observed in the module. observed in biological salts.”