A study from the North Carolina State University introduces the world to the "Butterfly Bot," claiming that it is the "Fastest Swimming Soft Robot" in the existence of the robotics industry. This new robot gets its design inspiration from the hair clips used by the ladies for binding their hair, as well as the swimming motion by humans doing the butterfly stroke.
The robot also copies the biomechanics of its fast-swimming counterpart on the water, the Manta Ray, which has an unorthodox way of traveling on water, unlike other fishes.
Butterfly Bot: NCSU Makes the Fastest Soft Robot in the World
(Photo : Yin Lab@NCSU via YouTube Screenshot)
According to a news release by the NCSU, researchers have debuted the fastest soft robot in existence, one which trumps other bots in the water, called the "Butterfly Bot." It features a design akin to a hair clip and centers on human-like motions doing the butterfly stroke, a form of swimming where both arms move at the same time, with one's feet moving as one object with the body.
The study's lead author, Professor Jie Yin, said that soft robots cannot swim one body length per second, but its Butterfly Bot was able to deliver four times the speed of previously made ones.
The team took the biomechanics of a manta ray as inspiration for this study, aiming to deliver one that would take soft robotics to the next level.
The study entitled "Snapping for high-speed and high-efficient butterfly stroke-like soft swimmer" was published in the Science Advances journal.
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Hair Clip, Manta Ray-Inspired, Doing the Butterly Stroke
Professor Yin said that the team created two Butterfly Bots in this study, with one centering on speed, and the other on maneuverability that can take on sharp turns while swimming.
Both feature the hair clip, and manta ray-inspired design, also doing the human's butterfly stroke in their innovation. The one focused on speed can swim up to 3.74 body lengths per second, and the other robot can do sharp turns with a maximum speed of 1.7 body lengths per second.
Soft Robots and Those that Can Swim
There are different robot innovations in the world now, and they center on ushering in a new age in its development, one that goes against what people know about these mechanical beings. There was one study regarding a Chameleon robot that also copies colors and mimics the environment it is in through 3D printing technology.
Soft robots are now special developments from researchers, centering on handling delicate objects or replicating different living organisms like animals and more.
On the other hand, swimming robots also break the notion of the early 20th century's perception of the tech, one that gets electrocuted or short circuits when falling into water. It is because there are designs on swimming robots, with one significant venture called the "SWIM" project from NASA, which aims to bring the technology to Jupiter's Europa to detect any living organisms.
These researches on soft robots and swimming robots break the norm regarding these innovations for their rigid structure and mechanical movements, with the Butterfly Bot breaking boundaries and records. NCSU's recent development delivers the hair clip-like object, one that is capable to swim at fast speeds using a stroke which humans do in the water.
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Written by Isaiah Richard
