Robotic Fish Gain New Sense: Navigate Water Currents and Turbulence

Mar. 6, 2013 — Scientists have developed robots with a new sense -- lateral line sensing. All fish have this sensing organ but so far it had no technological counterpart on human-made underwater vehicles.

In an article published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A, researchers describe a robotic fish that is controlled with the help of lateral line sensors.

Robotic fish. (Credit: Image courtesy of Tallinn University of Technology)

During the last 4 years, the EU funded European research project FILOSE has investigated fish lateral line sensing and locomotion with the aims of understanding how fish detect and exploit flow features, and of developing efficient underwater robots based on biological principles.

Though flow is a highly volatile and unsteady state of matter, it can nonetheless be measured and characterized based on many salient features that do not change much in space and time (such as flow direction or turbulence intensity, for example). These salient features can then be described as a "flowscape" -- a flow landscape that helps fish and robots to orient themselves, navigate and control their movements.

Continued:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130306084201.htm