Source Paper: Thrust force characterization of free-swimming soft robotic jellyfish. Bioinspiration and Biomimetics
I started with this paper from the course bibliography. Since I’m interested in making a robotic jellyfish/octopus swimmer, I was interested in past works on this topic. The authors made 5 different soft jellyfish robots that could freely swim underwater, and compared their performance on thrust generated relative to factors like actuation frequency and amplitude.
Jennifer Frame, Nick Lopez, Oscar Curet, and Erik D. Engeberg. Thrust force characterization of free-swimming soft robotic jellyfish. Bioinspiration and Biomimetics, 2018. doi:10.1088/1748-3190/aadcb3.
Root Paper: Bioinspired locomotion and grasping in water: the soft eight-arm OCTOPUS robot
The OCTOPUS paper presented a soft robot octopus that was able to grab and manipulate objects and walk along the bottom of a tank underwater. It included a diagram of the assembled parts as well as pictures of the actual robot. The robot had 6 manipulation arms and 2 location arms. I thought this was an interesting paper for the source paper to reference, since it is also mimicking an underwater creature but was not attempting to float/swim like a jellyfish does.
M. Cianchetti, M. Calisti, L. Margheri, M. Kuba, and C. Laschi, “Bioinspired locomotion and grasping in water: the soft eight-arm OCTOPUS robot,” Bioinspir. Biomim., vol. 10, no. 3, Jun. 2015, doi: 10.1088/1748-3190/10/3/035003.
Lateral Paper 1: Fully 3D printed multi-material soft bio-inspired frog for underwater synchronous swimming
This paper showed a frog robot that had fully 3D printed parts. The body was printed, and muscle wire was inserted into the limbs in the middle of the printing process. Flippers were also printed and attached. The limbs/flippers were printed with polyjet ultraflex which made it a soft material. The frog was tested in a tank and its motion was compared to that of a real frog. I was interested in the way this paper used 3d printed parts to create an underwater robot.
A. M. Soomro et al., “Fully 3D printed multi-material soft bio-inspired frog for underwater synchronous swimming,” International Journal of Mechanical Sciences, vol. 210, p. 106725, Nov. 2021, doi: 10.1016/j.ijmecsci.2021.106725.
Lateral Paper 2: A bionic soft tongue driven by shape memory alloy and pneumatics
This paper presented the design, fabrication and testing of a bionic tongue with the goal of grasping objects. It used a solenoid with a segmented, straw-like structure. It discussed how molds were used in the fabrication process. I’d be interested in learning more about shape memory alloy.
N. Gong, H. Jin, S. Sun, S. Mao, W. Li, and S. Zhang, “A bionic soft tongue driven by shape memory alloy and pneumatics,” Bioinspir. Biomim., vol. 16, no. 5, p. 055008, Sep. 2021, doi: 10.1088/1748-3190/ac0b98.