Robotic Jellyfish — Tingyu Cheng

Untethered soft robotic jellyfish

Cheng, Tingyu, Guorui Li, Yiming Liang, Mingqi Zhang, Bangyuan Liu, Tuck-whye Wong, Jack Forman et al. Smart Materials and Structures (2018).

Project Overview

Inspired by natural creatures, soft robots possess the unique advantages of large actuation and excellent adaptability. Untethered designs of soft robots are drawing more attention to researchers, but current research is limited. Also, there is an increasing need to improve the performance of bio-mimetic robots. This work describes an untethered soft robotic jellyfish with high mobility that can mimic a natural jellyfish's performance.

Illustration figure of robotic jellyfish

Locomotion of robotic jellyfish with and without compact power source

Robotic jellyfish can move 0.8 BL/s

Illustration figures and FEA results

Tools for pre-stretching dielectric elastomer film

The curing process of the robotic jellyfish's body frame