Autonomous soft-bodied robots are important because they allow for safer human-robot interaction and open up new uses for robots. In the case of robotic fish, soft-bodied robots resemble much more closely the behavior of natural fish, which can serve many purposes. The fish developed in the Distributed Robotics Laboratory (DRL) in CSAIL mimic the body of a real fish and are capable of diving and turning with about 35 minutes of battery life. This SuperUROP will focus on improving the gear pump design including implementing brushless motors for higher efficiency, as well as mounting RGB cameras to the heads of the fish to allow for coordinated swimming.

I have always been interested in robotics but especially found interest in how nature can inspire the current state of our robots, so I was very excited to find out about this SuperUROP in which I will work with robotic fish. My internship in embedded systems at Draper Laboratory as well as experience gained here at MIT in power electronics, circuit design, robotics, etc. will help me in this SuperUROP tremendously.