Bioinspired flow sensor enables underwater robots to estimate motion and detect flow structure
Myungsun Park, Allyson E. Chen, Jacobo Cervera-Torralba, Michael T. Tolley, Geno Pawlak · 2026
Read Bioinspired flow sensor enables underwater robots to estimate motion and detect flow structure by Myungsun Park, Allyson E. Chen, Jacobo Cervera-Torralba, Michael T. Tolley, Geno Pawlak (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13232555.txt.
Description
Myungsun Park and colleagues give in 2026 underwater robots a soft hair sensor modeled on how fish and seals feel water. Sound-based speed gear is bulky and costly for small vehicles, leaving them nearly blind to flow in dark or murky water. Their sensor bends with the water, and the bend reports speed, direction, and pulsing of the flow.
Mounted on swimming robots, the hairs tracked forward speed, sideways drift, and heading during motion. Even while swimming, the robots picked out the wake behind an upstream object by its rhythm. Small vehicles could thus read currents and nearby obstacles without cameras or large sonar rigs. Flow feeling may help compact robots search and adapt in cluttered waters.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Myungsun Park, Allyson E. Chen, Jacobo Cervera-Torralba, Michael T. Tolley, Geno Pawlak |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 51 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |