Skip to main content

Festo’s cuttlefish-inspired robot looks like it escaped an alien aquarium

Festo – BionicFinWave (English/Deutsch)

In today’s fast-moving world, there are three constants: Death, taxes, and that the nature-inspired robots built by German automation company Festo fill us with a geeky sense of joy. Having previously created everything from bat robots to a creepy OctopusGripper straight from the mind of H.P. Lovecraft, Festo is now back with its latest creation — and, boy, is it awesomely weird!

The creation in question is called BionicFinWave. While that totally sounds like it should be the name of a Japanese mecha anime series, in fact it’s an unusual looking fish-inspired underwater robot, designed to replicate the type of undulating long fin-aided locomotion most commonly seen in cuttlefish. The wave-shaped movement of these fins is used to generate forward, upward, downward, and even backward motion in the fishbot. Changing between different movements can be achieved by altering the wave patterns in the fins. This results in surprisingly efficient movement — with far less churning up of the water than is the case with some alternate forms of underwater propulsion.

Festo

In terms of components, the fish uses a primarily 3D-printed body with silicone fins and servo motors to provide its movement. It also has batteries, a pressure and ultrasound sensor for gathering information about its surroundings, and the technology to transmit this data to the outside world. It is able to carry out its movement without any tethers or cords leading up to the surface.

Most of Festo’s robots are created to be essentially fancy demos, akin to concept cars or the world’s fanciest business cards. While there’s no word on whether BionicFinWave is any different, the company does note that it could have real-world applications. These might include tasks like underwater inspections or data collection. Fields which might require such a robot include the water, sewage, and other process industries. It’s conceivable that the unusual propulsion system could also lend itself to crafts like future submarines.

Still, even if this remains no more than a fancy showcase of what Festo is able to put together in its labs, the fact that it exists at all makes us pretty happy. And excited to see what the company has up its sleeves next.

Editors' Recommendations

Luke Dormehl
I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…
Insect-inspired repair robot clings to giant turbine blades with suction legs
BladeBug robot

Have you heard of “wing walkers,” the daredevil stuntmen and women who walk along the wings of planes in flight? Well, BladeBUG is cut from the same cloth -- only instead of airborne planes, it performs “blade walks” along the blades of operational offshore wind turbines. And instead of being a death-defying human daredevil, it’s a suction cup-equipped robot insect. (But other than that, it’s totally the same.)

“This opens the door to autonomous inspection and repair of wind turbines, improving the efficiency of the blades and reducing risk for rope access technicians,” Chris Cieslak, founder and director of BladeBUG, told Digital Trends. “[Our robot] uses a patent-pending six-legged design with suction cup feet, which means each of the legs can move and bend independently. This is significant because it enables the robot to walk on the blade’s changing curved surface, as well as inside the blade, tower, or hub of the turbine.”

Read more
A flock of bionic birds and an autonomous robot arm are Festo’s latest creations
festo robot arm robo birds bionic bird

If you thought that robot dog creators Boston Dynamics had the market cornered when it comes to attention-grabbing, natural world-inspired robots, you clearly haven’t heard of Festo. For the past several years, Festo -- a Germany-based multinational industrial control and automation company -- has been moonlighting as the creator of some of the craziest robots around, from bionic flying foxes to robot jellyfish to robotic spiders that resemble a Star Wars battle droid.

This month it unleashed its two latest creations: BionicSwift, a flock of flying robot birds, and BionicMobileAssistant, a human arm-inspired robot gripper on wheels. And they're both awesomely impressive in their own way.

Read more
This speedy, tiny soft robot was inspired by the way a cheetah runs
north carolina state cheetah robot

video combined

Researchers at North Carolina State University have built a cheetah-inspired robot. But it doesn’t look quite like what you’re probably expecting. While we’re used to robots like Boston Dynamics’ canine-inspired, full-sized dog robots, North Carolina State’s cheetah robot is just 7 centimeters long (2.75 inches) and weighs only 45 grams (just over 1.5 ounces). For those who don’t qualify as wildlife experts, that’s considerably smaller than a real-life adult cheetah, which can measure around 4.5 feet in length, and weigh between 75 and 150 pounds.

Read more