Stringray Robots for Ocean Exploration
Science is always looking to learn from nature to improve the efficiency of machines and processes. As the world looks to explore the oceans that cover more than two-thirds of the planet’s surface, scientists are starting to move closer to building more efficient vehicles based on marine animals themselves.
Researchers at the University of Buffalo and Harvard University have started to look to stingrays as a model for remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs). Stingrays are unique because they do not swim using a side-to-side motion to propel themselves forward like other fishes do. Instead, stingrays use their “wings” to “fly” through the water, much like a bird flies through air.
Using computation fluid dynamics, researchers at the University of Buffalo are looking to discover why stingrays evolved this form of locomotion and why it works. Across the river at Harvard University, researchers are using live stingrays to gather data to help their colleagues build the algorithms necessary for the supercomputers to draw the necessary conclusions from the fluid dynamic algorithms.
The findings of this research are to be debuted on November 24th at the 66th Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics. This conference will be held in Pittsburgh and the lecture outlining the research will be titled “Biofluids: Locomotion III -Flying.”
Katie Hudson, 2017, Marine Biology
Read more at: http://www.azorobotics.com/news.aspx?newsID=4868
