Fast-burrowing RoboClam will help anchor autonomous submarines

The researchers, who’ve been working on RoboClam since 2006, describe the mechanics behind this process in a paper to be published in Bioinspiration and Biomimetics

In use, RoboClam could be used to dig itself into the ground to bury anchors or destroy underwater mines, claimed its developer, Amos Winter, the Robert N. Noyce Career Development Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT.

Despite its rigid shell, the Atlantic razor clam can move through soil at a speed of 1cm per second. ‘The clam’s trick is to move its shells in such a way as to liquefy the soil around its body, reducing the drag acting upon it. This means it requires much less force to pull its shell into the soil than it would when moving through static soil,’ Winter said in a statement.

To develop a robot that replicates this capability, Winter and his co-developer, Anette Hosoi, professor of mechanical engineering and applied mathematics at MIT, needed to understand how the clam’s movement causes the soil to liquefy, or turn into quicksand, around its shell.