This Robot Mimics a Primitive Eel-Like Fish, Swims Like a Pro

This Robot Mimics a Primitive Eel-Like Fish, Swims Like a Pro

Source: autoevolution

8/13/2021

Meet AgnathaX: a long, undulating robot designed to mimic the movements of a lamprey. Putting it to the test underwater helped scientists gain a better understanding of the process that goes behind the generation of movement after a spinal cord injury. Their discovery could be applied in the development of swimming robots used in search and rescue operations.

It's not the first robot the researchers at the Biorobotics Laboratory in Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) are developing. They have been designing quadruped robots, humanoid ones, and modular machines. This is just their latest example used to study how locomotion works in eel-like robots.

AgnathaX is equipped with a set of motors that control the robot's ten segments, which are designed to mimic the muscles found on a lamprey's body. The robot also features force sensors placed along the segments that detect the force of the water against it, similar to the pressure-sensitive cells on a lamprey's skin.