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Modelling cephalopod-inspired pulsed-jet locomotion for underwater soft robots

Modelling cephalopod-inspired pulsed-jet locomotion for underwater soft robots
Modelling cephalopod-inspired pulsed-jet locomotion for underwater soft robots
Cephalopods (i.e., octopuses and squids) are being looked upon as a source of inspiration for the development of unmanned underwater vehicles. One kind of cephalopod-inspired soft-bodied vehicle developed by the authors entails a hollow, elastic shell capable of performing a routine of recursive ingestion and expulsion of discrete slugs of fluids which enable the vehicle to propel itself in water. The vehicle performances were found to depend largely on the elastic response of the shell to the actuation cycle, thus motivating the development of a coupled propulsion-elastodynamics model of such vehicles. The model is developed and validated against a set of experimental results performed with the existing cephalopod-inspired prototypes. A metric of the efficiency of the propulsion routine which accounts for the elastic energy contribution during the ingestion/expulsion phases of the actuation is formulated. Demonstration on the use of this model to estimate the efficiency of the propulsion routine for various pulsation frequencies and for different morphologies of the vehicles are provided. This metric of efficiency, employed in association with the present elastodynamics model, provides a useful tool for performing a priori energetic analysis which encompass both the design specifications and the actuation pattern of this new kind of underwater vehicle.
1748-3182
1-12
Renda, Federico
495810c0-7ec1-4d22-a099-1cfe208aba95
Giorgio-Serchi, Francesco
8571dc14-19c1-4ed1-8080-d380736a6ffa
Boyer, Frederic
3ee9d74c-2df5-46e7-b315-a49a41497626
Laschi, Cecilia
302c8a64-0ba9-4d5c-9d6f-efcfd4acc64a
Renda, Federico
495810c0-7ec1-4d22-a099-1cfe208aba95
Giorgio-Serchi, Francesco
8571dc14-19c1-4ed1-8080-d380736a6ffa
Boyer, Frederic
3ee9d74c-2df5-46e7-b315-a49a41497626
Laschi, Cecilia
302c8a64-0ba9-4d5c-9d6f-efcfd4acc64a

Renda, Federico, Giorgio-Serchi, Francesco, Boyer, Frederic and Laschi, Cecilia (2015) Modelling cephalopod-inspired pulsed-jet locomotion for underwater soft robots. [in special issue: Selected papers from Living Machines 2014] Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, 10 (5), 1-12. (doi:10.1088/1748-3190/10/5/055005).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Cephalopods (i.e., octopuses and squids) are being looked upon as a source of inspiration for the development of unmanned underwater vehicles. One kind of cephalopod-inspired soft-bodied vehicle developed by the authors entails a hollow, elastic shell capable of performing a routine of recursive ingestion and expulsion of discrete slugs of fluids which enable the vehicle to propel itself in water. The vehicle performances were found to depend largely on the elastic response of the shell to the actuation cycle, thus motivating the development of a coupled propulsion-elastodynamics model of such vehicles. The model is developed and validated against a set of experimental results performed with the existing cephalopod-inspired prototypes. A metric of the efficiency of the propulsion routine which accounts for the elastic energy contribution during the ingestion/expulsion phases of the actuation is formulated. Demonstration on the use of this model to estimate the efficiency of the propulsion routine for various pulsation frequencies and for different morphologies of the vehicles are provided. This metric of efficiency, employed in association with the present elastodynamics model, provides a useful tool for performing a priori energetic analysis which encompass both the design specifications and the actuation pattern of this new kind of underwater vehicle.

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Accepted/In Press date: 30 July 2015
Published date: 28 September 2015
Organisations: Fluid Structure Interactions Group

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 395556
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/395556
ISSN: 1748-3182
PURE UUID: f50d9208-affc-4c63-a81f-464c74cf6c86
ORCID for Francesco Giorgio-Serchi: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-5090-9007

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Date deposited: 01 Jun 2016 10:13
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 00:42

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Contributors

Author: Federico Renda
Author: Francesco Giorgio-Serchi ORCID iD
Author: Frederic Boyer
Author: Cecilia Laschi

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