Soft robotic fish offers fresh insights into oceanic life

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A soft robotic fish developed at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, could give biologists a new tool for non-intrusively studying marine life.

In a new paper, the team at CSAIL has unveiled SoFi, a robotic fish that can swim on its own alongside real fish in the ocean.

During test dives, SoFi swam at depths of over 50 feet for up to 40 minutes whilst taking high-resolution imagery and negotiating currents.

Using its undulating tail and ability to control its own buoyancy, SoFi can swim in a straight line, turn, or dive up or down. The team also used a waterproofed Super Nintendo controller and developed a custom acoustic communications system that enabled them to change SoFi’s speed and command specific moves and turns.

“To our knowledge, this is the first robotic fish that can swim untethered in three dimensions for extended periods of time,” said CSAIL PhD candidate Robert Katzschmann, lead author of the new journal article published in Science Robotics. “We are excited about the possibility of being able to use a system like this to get closer to marine life than humans can get on their own.”

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