Project Idea
My project idea is an aquarium exhibit with small soft robotic fish or other creatures which can interact with each other in some way. The actuation methods for each robot will be simple for feasibility. Possible creatures include: fish with soft tails which can actuate to swim, or jellyfish with soft robotic tentacles. The creatures should have some mechanism to interact with each other, either directly with proximity sensors, or (more likely) a magnet to divert them from each other. The overall goal is to create a robotic “ecosystem”, possibly with “predator” and “prey” fish.
Art/Design Resources
https://www.csail.mit.edu/research/sofi-soft-robotic-fish
https://spectrum.ieee.org/blueswarm-robotic-fish#toggle-gdpr
Technical/Research Papers
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
J. E. M. Teoh, R. C. Mysa, T. V. Truong, and P. V. y Alvarado, “Propulsive performance of an undulating fin soft robot,” in Global Oceans 2020: Singapore – U.S. Gulf Coast, Oct. 2020, pp. 1–5. doi: 10.1109/IEEECONF38699.2020.9389238.
L. Hines, K. Petersen, G. Z. Lum, and M. Sitti, “Soft Actuators for Small-Scale Robotics,” Advanced Materials, vol. 29, no. 13, p. 1603483, 2017, doi: 10.1002/adma.201603483.
Y. Jiang, X. Liu, H. Chen, W. Gong, Y. Lu and W. Zhang, “Design and Modeling of a Biomimetic Wire-driven Soft Robotic Fish,” 2019 Chinese Automation Congress (CAC), 2019, pp. 1778-1782, doi: 10.1109/CAC48633.2019.8996663.