Soft Underwater Robots
The exploration of complex underwater environments, such as coral reefs and shipwrecks, remains a significant challenge due to the limitations of traditional underwater vehicles. These conventional systems struggle to navigate confined spaces, operate efficiently in unstructured environments, and remain prohibitively expensive for widespread use. This research addresses these challenges by developing bioinspired soft underwater robots that combine efficient swimming mechanisms with low-cost, manufacturable designs.
We introduce a two novel robotic platforms: Eel Bot, a modular, soft robotic fish actuated by a cable-driven wave spring mechanism to mimic biological swimming gaits, and DRAGON (Deformable Robot for Agile Guided Observation and Navigation), a flexible vectored underwater vehicle (VUV) designed for high-speed locomotion and precise maneuverability. These robots leverage soft materials, biomimetic actuation, and scalable fabrication techniques to provide a more adaptable and accessible alternative to traditional underwater robotics. Additionally, this work presents SURF-COM (Simple Underwater Robotic Framework for Communication), a low-cost, open-source acoustic control system enabling untethered underwater robot operation. By bridging the gap between affordability and performance, this research advances the field of soft underwater robotics and paves the way for more effective robotic tools in oceanographic research, environmental monitoring, and conservation efforts.
Advisor: Professor Cagdas Onal
Committee: Professor Mahdi Agheli, Professor Markus Nemitz, Rachel Scudder PhD
Zoom link: https://wpi.zoom.us/j/2669122341