The Indian Institute of technology (IIT) Indore has developed a prototype robot resembling a jellyfish to document marine life at close range. Conventional motor-based bio-inspired robots are noisy, limiting their applicability for marine life monitoring as they disturb marine species.
IIT Indore’s Mechatronics and Instrumentation Laboratory has developed a shape memory alloy (SMA) polymer-based soft robotic jellyfish for noiseless marine life monitoring. The continuous heating and cooling of the SMA wire-based polymer structure is responsible for expansion and contraction of its body with tentacles which generate thrust to make the 250 gm robot move in the water. A combination of soft and smart materials allows it to mimic complex motions like real underwater living creatures.
These robots can be used to study the functioning of certain underwater species that are highly conscious of artificial cameras or understanding the behaviour of coral reefs.
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