DEVELOPMENT OF MANTA RAY INSPIRED FISH ROBOT WITH EMBODIED SENSING FOR EFFICIENT UNDERWATER ENVIRONMENT MONITORING

This study aims to design and develop a bio-inspired soft robotic fish for underwater environment monitoring. The ocean is vast, covering more than 70% of earth’s surface and largely unexplored frontier having diverse ecosystems and vital resources. Monitoring underwater environment is important for understanding marine life and studying impacts of climate change. While traditional robots such as AUVs are precise and durable but due to their bulky structure struggle in complex conditions in ocean. Due to disadvantages such as less adaptable and potentially harmful to marine ecosystem of hard robots, the increasing demand for effective underwater environment monitoring has sparked interest in bio-inspired soft robotics. Soft robots are ideal for underwater monitoring due to their flexible and adaptable structure. They can navigate complex environments more easily, reducing the risk of damaging marine life and robot itself. This study presents the design and implementation of soft robotic fish inspired by manta rays known for their unique swimming pattern, efficient and agile locomotion. Our robot mimics real manta rays’ movements patterns by utilizing pectoral fins made from soft materials which generate thrusts using pneumatic actuation. The robot fins were designed by studying manta ray fin propulsion and simulating in ANSYS software where we observed same pattern of movement of real manta ray fish. The fins were fabricated using ecoflex0030 which is flexible soft material. The prototype was tested to observe the movement of fins and evaluate its performance which was close to real fish movements. This study helps in advancement of bio-inspired underwater robotics field by improving efficiency and capability of underwater monitoring systems. Future work will focus on refining the design, improving performance of robot, developing communication system and embodied sensing for data collection such as pressure, temperature of underwater environments.