Chris Burns - Jan 15, 2021, 2:53pm CST
A swarm robotic fish donned the cover of Science Robotics this week courtesy of researchers from Harvard University. Florian Berlinger, Melvin Gauchi, and Radhika Nagpal delivered a paper on “Implicit coordination for 3D underwater collective behaviors in a fish-inspired robot swarm.” These little robots are very, very cute, too.
The 3D underwater robot collective in this research is called Blueswarm. The robots are called Bluebots. Each Bluebot works with 3D visual perception and gets around with “autonomous 3D multifin locomotion.”
This robot works with one caudal fin, two pectoral fins, and a dorsal fin. The dorsal fin handles vertical diving for depth control, while the other three fins work to enable “nearly independent forward and turning motions.”