The northern clingfish, Gobiesox maeandricus, is able to adhere to slippery, fouled and irregular surfaces in the marine intertidal environment. We have found that the fish can adhere equally well to surfaces with a broad range of surface roughness, from the finest sandpaper (R(a) = 15 µm) to textures suitable for removing finish from flooring (R(a) = 269 µm). The fishes outperform man-made suc...

Object search is one of the typical tasks for remotely-controlled service robots. Although object recognition technologies have been well developed, an efficient search strategy (or viewpoint planning method) is still an issue. This paper describes a new approach to human-robot collaborative remote object search. An analogy for our approach is ride on shoulders; a user controls a fish-eye camer...

In order to improve the performance of AUVs in terms of efficiency and maneuverability, researchers have proposed biomimetic propulsion systems that swim using flapping fins rather than rotary propellers. This calls for the exploration of unique locomotion characteristics found in a variety of fish for use in underwater robots. (Sfakiotakis et. al., 1999) present a good review of fish swimming ...

The scaled skin of fish is a high-performance natural armor that represents a source of inspiration for novel engineering designs. In this paper, we present a biomimetic fish skin material, fabricated with a design and components that are simple, that achieves many of the advantageous attributes of natural materials, including the unique combination of flexibility and mechanical robustness. The...

Two basic tasks must be performed by an olfactory robot tracking a specific odor source : navigate in a turbulent odor plume and recognize an odor regardless of its concentration. For these two tasks, we propose simple biologically inspired strategies, well suited for building dedicated circuits and for on-board implementation on real robots. The odor recognition system is based on a spiking ne...

The design of legged robots has long drawn on nature for inspiration. However, few of these robots exhibit the speed and robustness seen in even the simplest of animals. This paper presents the design and fabrication of a novel class of six-legged running robots based on biologicallyinspired functional principles. We first describe recent findings in biological research that motivate our robots...

Playing table tennis is a difficult motor task which requires fast movements, accurate control and adaptation to task parameters. Although human beings see and move slower than most robot systems they outperform all table tennis robots significantly. In this paper we study human table tennis and present a robot system that mimics human striking behavior. Therefore we model the human movements i...

The breathtaking motions of natural groups such as bird flocks and fish schools have been a major inspiration for research in the development of control algorithms for multi-robot systems. A main thrust of research in this area is to understand how the interconnections among individual behaviors result in high-performing group behaviors. In this dissertation, we are concerned with how individua...

There is an ongoing interest in analyzing the flow characteristics of swimming fish. Biology has resulted in some very efficient motions and formulating these motions is of interest to engineers. One such motion theory was written previously by Vorus and Taravella, and the University of New Orleans was given funds by the Office and Naval Research to test this theory. Computational fluid dynamic...

The design of legged robots has long drawn on nature for inspiration. However, few of these robots exhibit the speed and robustness seen in even the simplest of animals. This paper presents the design and fabrication of a novel class of six-legged running robots based on biologically-inspired functional principles. We first describe recent findings in biological research that motivate our robot...