Robotic octopus could carry out underwater operations

The biomimetic cephalopod is being designed to match a real octopus in terms of speed, dexterity and flexibility.

The work, an FP7 ICT research project, will mimic an octopus in its entirety and in doing so will likely lead to new technologies for actuation, sensing, control and robot architectures, materials and kinematics.

Possible uses for the autonomous, battery-powered device include underwater maintenance, marine salvage and retrieval of objects, such as black-box recorders from crashed aircraft.

In nature, an octopus contains no rigid structures and is capable of adapting the shape of its body to the environment it is in, including very confined spaces.

This lack of rigid structure means that the octopus has an infinite number of degrees of freedom; it can twist, elongate and bend its arms in all directions. Despite the lack of skeletal support, the octopus can vary the stiffness in its arms to apply force.

Dr Richard Bonser from Reading University’s School of Construction Management and Engineering has been awarded £649,000 as part of an EU consortium to design eight arms that mimic the dexterity and control of the marine invertebrate. This includes the suckers on the arms and waterproof skin.