September 1, 2014 Journal article Open Access

FILOSE for Svenning: A Flow Sensing Bioinspired Robot

Jennifer Brown; Maria-Camilla Fiazza; Lorenzo Rossi; Gert Toming; Hadi El Daou; Antonio Qualtieri; Otar Akanyeti; Maarja Kruusmaa; Taavi Salumae; R. Venturelli; William Megill; Paolo Fiorini; J L Maud; Andrew Liszewski; Francesco Rizzi; Francesco Visentin; David Samuel Jung; Lily D. Chambers; Jaas Jezov; Madis Listak; Massimo De Vittorio

The trend of biomimetic underwater robots has emerged as a search for an alternative to traditional propeller-driven underwater vehicles. The drive of this trend, as in any other areas of bioinspired and biomimetic robotics, is the belief that exploiting solutions that evolution has already optimized leads to more advanced technologies and devices. In underwater robotics, bioinspired design is expected to offer more energy-efficient, highly maneuverable, agile, robust, and stable underwater robots. The 30,000 fish species have inspired roboticists to mimic tuna [1], rays [2], boxfish [3], eels [4], and others. The development of the first commercialized fish robot Ghostswimmer by Boston Engineering and the development of fish robots for field trials with specific applications in mind (http://www.roboshoal. com) mark a new degree of maturity of this engineering discipline after decades of laboratory trials.