Oct 1, 2021 03:48 PM
https://theconversation.com/to-swim-like...ime-168046
EXCERPTS: Underwater vehicles haven’t changed much since the submarines of World War II. They’re rigid, fairly boxy and use propellers to move. And whether they are large manned vessels or small robots, most underwater vehicles have one cruising speed where they are most energy efficient.
Fish take a very different approach to moving through water: Their bodies and fins are very flexible, and this flexibility allows them to interact with water more efficiently than rigid machines. Researchers have been designing and building flexible fishlike robots for years, but they still trail far behind real fish in terms of efficiency.
What’s missing? I am an engineer and study fluid dynamics. My labmates and I wondered if something in particular about the flexibility of fish tails allows fish to be so fast and efficient in the water. So, we created a model and built a robot to study the effect of stiffness on swimming efficiency. We found fish swim so efficiently over a wide range of speeds because they can change how rigid or flexible their tails are in real time.
[...] While it is great to build one excellent robot, the thing my colleagues and I are most excited about is that our model is adaptable. We can tweak it based on body size, swimming style or even fluid type. It can be applied to animals and machines whether they are big or small, swimmers or flyers.
[...] The model also has applications for robotic design too. Higher energy efficiency when swimming or flying – which also means quieter robots – would enable radically new missions for vehicles and robots that currently have only one efficient cruising speed. In the short term, this could help biologists study river beds and coral reefs more easily, enable researchers to track wind and ocean currents at unprecedented scales or allow search and rescue teams to operate farther and longer.
In the long term, I hope our research could inspire new designs for submarines and airplanes. Humans have only been working on swimming and flying machines for a couple centuries, while animals have been perfecting their skills for millions of years. There’s no doubt there is still a lot to learn from them... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: Underwater vehicles haven’t changed much since the submarines of World War II. They’re rigid, fairly boxy and use propellers to move. And whether they are large manned vessels or small robots, most underwater vehicles have one cruising speed where they are most energy efficient.
Fish take a very different approach to moving through water: Their bodies and fins are very flexible, and this flexibility allows them to interact with water more efficiently than rigid machines. Researchers have been designing and building flexible fishlike robots for years, but they still trail far behind real fish in terms of efficiency.
What’s missing? I am an engineer and study fluid dynamics. My labmates and I wondered if something in particular about the flexibility of fish tails allows fish to be so fast and efficient in the water. So, we created a model and built a robot to study the effect of stiffness on swimming efficiency. We found fish swim so efficiently over a wide range of speeds because they can change how rigid or flexible their tails are in real time.
[...] While it is great to build one excellent robot, the thing my colleagues and I are most excited about is that our model is adaptable. We can tweak it based on body size, swimming style or even fluid type. It can be applied to animals and machines whether they are big or small, swimmers or flyers.
[...] The model also has applications for robotic design too. Higher energy efficiency when swimming or flying – which also means quieter robots – would enable radically new missions for vehicles and robots that currently have only one efficient cruising speed. In the short term, this could help biologists study river beds and coral reefs more easily, enable researchers to track wind and ocean currents at unprecedented scales or allow search and rescue teams to operate farther and longer.
In the long term, I hope our research could inspire new designs for submarines and airplanes. Humans have only been working on swimming and flying machines for a couple centuries, while animals have been perfecting their skills for millions of years. There’s no doubt there is still a lot to learn from them... (MORE - missing details)