SeaViper: An Efficient Thin 2D Surface-Swimming Soft Robot
Elias Veilleux, Hsin Cheng, Sigurd Wagner, Naveen Verma, James Sturm, Minjie Chen
AI summary
Problem
Adapting modular soft robotic platforms from land to water requires overcoming hydrodynamic drag, buoyancy, and waterproofing constraints while maintaining energy efficiency and untethered operation.
Approach
The team designed a thin, waterproof, piezoelectric-actuated H-frame robot that swims at the air-water interface by vibrating its legs to generate thrust, testing three geometries to optimize performance near structural resonance.
Key results
- Peak velocity of 33.2 cm/s (1.37 body-lengths per second)
- Minimum cost of transport of 3.9 at resonant frequency
- Validated hydrodynamic resonance models with added-mass corrections
- Integrated untethered operation with onboard microcontroller and in-situ charging
Why it matters
Offers a scalable, energy-efficient design framework for untethered soft aquatic robots, advancing bio-inspired surface locomotion for marine monitoring and exploration.
Abstract
This paper introduces SeaViper, a soft extendable aquatic vibrating intelligent piezoelectric robot that extends pre- viously developed land-based systems into the aquatic domain. The aquatic domain introduces new fundamental mechanisms of motion as well as new robot-platform requirements. To study these, we present the mechanical and electrical design of SeaViper and investigate the drive–frequency response of three prototype configurations, with energy efficiency as a key design consideration. The prototypes achieve a peak velocity of up to 33.2 cm/s (1.38 body-length per second) with an estimated power of 2 W and a minimum cost of transport (CoT) of 3.9, significantly improving upon the performance of the prior land prototype. Measured thrust data combined with current-sense analysis enable estimation of useful mechanical output and end-to-end electromechanical efficiency. Velocity and CoT are benchmarked against both other robotic swimmers and aquatic animals, highlighting the general gap to biological performance. To further advance the sheet-like, untethered design, the aquatic prototype integrates a microcontroller, wireless communication, sensing, and on-board battery charging circuitry, paving the way for future bio-inspired morphologies at the air–water interface with advanced driving patterns.