“These hair cells are like well-engineered mechanical sensors, similar to those that we use for balance and hearing in the human ear, where the deflection of the jelly-encapsulated hair cell measures important flow information,” said Vladimir Tsukruk, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Materials Science and Engineering. “The hairs are better than active sonar, which requires a lot of space, sends out strong acoustic signals that can have a detrimental effect on the environment, and is inappropriate for stealth applications.”

In a presentation on March 20 at the American Physical Society meeting, researchers from Georgia Tech described their engineered motion detector that mimics the underwater flow measurements made by the blind cavefish. This research was sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).