Octopus-Swimming-Like Robot with Soft Asymmetric Arms
Bobing Zhang, Yiyuan Zhang, Yiming Li, Sicheng Xuan, Hong Wei Ng, Yuliang Liufu, Zhiqiang Tang, Cecilia Laschi

TL;DR
This paper introduces a novel octopus-inspired underwater robot with asymmetric passive arms and a simple actuation system, achieving efficient swimming and simplifying design complexity for biological and robotic research.
Contribution
The work presents a new bio-inspired robot design that uses passive morphing arms and minimal motors to replicate octopus swimming, reducing complexity while maintaining performance.
Findings
Robot reached a peak speed of 314 mm/s.
Design simplifies actuation compared to traditional octopus robots.
Achieves efficient swimming with only two motors.
Abstract
Underwater vehicles have seen significant development over the past seventy years. However, bio-inspired propulsion robots are still in their early stages and require greater interdisciplinary collaboration between biologists and roboticists. The octopus, one of the most intelligent marine animals, exhibits remarkable abilities such as camouflaging, exploring, and hunting while swimming with its arms. Although bio-inspired robotics researchers have aimed to replicate these abilities, the complexity of designing an eight-arm bionic swimming platform has posed challenges from the beginning. In this work, we propose a novel bionic robot swimming platform that combines asymmetric passive morphing arms with an umbrella-like quick-return mechanism. Using only two simple constant-speed motors, this design achieves efficient swimming by replicating octopus-like arm movements and stroke time…
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Taxonomy
TopicsModular Robots and Swarm Intelligence · Robotic Path Planning Algorithms · Soft Robotics and Applications
