Researchers Spawn a New Breed of Robotic Fish

Engineers have long looked to nature for clues that will help then build robots that move with anything close to the grace that living things exhibit. Although the use of rigid metal and plastic parts tends to result in stiff, mechanical motion, a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) is experimenting with the use of a single piece of flexible silicon and urethane polymer to create robotic fish that smoothly wriggle through the water much like their natural counterparts. Fish propel themselves by contracting muscles on either side of their bodies, generating a wave that travels from head to tail. To mimic the motion, the M.I.T. researchers have created two different types of robo-fish. [More]

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