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A robot exalt by a hitchhiking fish can cling to surfaces underwater with a violence 340 times its own exercising weight .
The new bot was inspired by the remora , Pisces that cling to larger marine animals like sharks and whales , feeding off their host ' dead hide and feces .
This robot was inspired by the remora, which are fish that cling onto sharks and whales, feeding on the dead skin and feces of their hosts.
Remora fish do this with a specially adapted fin on their undersidescalled a sucking platter , which consist of a soft , circular " lip " and linear rows of tissue called lamellae . The lamellae mutant tiny , needle - like spinules . The remora can use tiny muscles around the disc to change its shape to suction itself to the master of ceremonies ; the spinules then provide major gripping power by adding friction to the equation .
" Biologists say that it represents one of the most over-the-top adaptation within the craniate , " say Li Wen , a robotics and biomechanics research worker at Beihang University inChinaand the lead story source of a raw report describing the remora robot . [ 7 Clever Technologies inspire by Nature ]
Fishy inspiration
Wen say he catch the idea for a sucking fish - instigate robot when he was a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University . He and his consultant were act upon ondesigning three-D - publish sharkskin . When looking up photos to use in a newspaper , Wen said , he kept seeing these odd small hanger - on in photos of shark . They were remoras . scratch by the fact that no one had tried to make a biorobotic suckerfish platter , Wen and his colleagues decide to take on the project themselves .
To do so , they had to follow up with a way to make a disc with sections ranging from downright rigid to skin - delicate . The researchers used 3D printing to pull off this effort , and then add about 1,000 fake spinules made of laser - cut carbon vulcanized fiber . To allow the disc to move just like a real remora disk , the researchers plant six pneumatic actuator — fundamentally small air pocket — that could inflate and deflate on cue .
The result looks a act like one of those shave razors with far too many blades , just larger . The robot measures about 5 inches ( 13 centimeters ) from end to end .
A look at the undulating remora robot dic.
Ride-along robot
To test this fishy bot , the research worker sequester it submerged to a diversity of surfaces , some rough , some politic , some stiff and some pliable . These admit realmako sharkskin , plexiglass , epoxy resin and silicone polymer elastomer . The robot clung quite nicely to all the surfaces , the investigator found .
The strength needed to rip the remora golem off the smooth Plexiglas was about 436 Newton , which translates to 340 times the weight of the robot itself . On rougher surfaces , the bot clung a little less tightly . It took about 167 newtons of force to pull the bot off substantial sharkskin , for instance .
eventually , the researchers attached their disc to a real remotely operate submersed fomite and practice attach the ROV by the magnetic disk , to various surface . They had a 100 percent achiever rate attaching the magnetic disc to the same range of surfaces that they ’d tested before , with an ordinary sentence to bind of less than 4 seconds , the study tell .
" The rigid spinules and soft material overlaying the lamellae engage with the surface when rotated , just like phonograph record of alive suckerfish , " Wen told Live Science .
While adhesive robots are nothing new , the remora is one of the first options roboticists have had for underwater attachments . Other glutinous bot , like ones urge on by tree frogs andgeckos , do n’t work on well when submerged . The remora bot could be used to attach things to any broad submerged surface , Wen say , or to let an underwater robot to cruise along on the underside of a boat .
Remora automaton could even be used as tag for tracking the movements of maritime animals , he tell . After all , what ’s one more hitchhiker ?
Original article onLive Science .
