NSF Award
2422535
We seek to reveal how fish achieve rapid maneuvers, a capability that surpasses even the most advanced robotic systems. Our research focuses on a central hypothesis: that fish use their muscles to dynamically control their body stiffness, the resistance to bending, and, more crucially, damping, the resistance to the speed of bending, a phenomenon that enables them to navigate complex and unpredictable aquatic environments. To test this hypothesis, we will conduct experiments on swimming fishes and measure the mechanical properties of their bodies and isolated muscles, alongside parallel tests using a custom biorobot platform. This synergy between biological and engineering approaches will help us understand whether fish execute fast accelerations and rapid turning maneuvers by dynamically modulating body damping and stiffness. This research will also deepen our understanding of how fish maneuver, including their behavior, the biomechanics of their bodies, and how they interact with the water around them. Our findings will also help us understand how different fish species are specialized for different swimming and adapted to different environments. Beyond fundamental understanding, our research will pave the way for developing extremely agile biorobots, unlocking complex missions previously inaccessible, such as nearshore environmental monitoring, detailed inspection of underwater offshore infrastructures, and non-intrusive studies of ocean biodiversity. By integrating biological insights with robotic design, our research will engage the public and educate future scholars from K-12, highlighting the shared physics underlying fish movement and biorobot design.<br/><br/>Fish can turn and accelerate faster than even the most advanced biomimetic robots. Prior work has attributed this extreme agility to the ability of fish to modulate their body stiffness (the resistance to bending), but this has produced limited results in biorobotics. We argue that the modulation of damping (the resistance to the rate of bending) is crucial for performing extreme maneuvers. Preliminary data from mathematical models and swimming experiments suggest that fish cannot achieve agile maneuvers without muscle-induced damping modulation. We plan to examine this modulation by conducting experiments on swimming fish and parallel tests using an advanced biorobot. In vivo swimming experiments will measure swimming performance and muscle behavior, which will be used to perform in vitro tests for measuring muscle power and body flexibility. Biorobotic experiments will measure the effects of dynamic tuning of body damping on maneuvering performance, energy dynamics, and fluid flow patterns. By integrating our robotic and biological findings, we aim to demonstrate that dynamic damping is essential for the extreme maneuverability crucial to the survival of fish. This interdisciplinary research not only paves the way for developing highly maneuverable biorobots but also inspires future BioDesign innovators to move from simple biomimicry to innovations grounded in biological and physical principles.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
