Paper, A biorobotic adhesive disc for underwater hitchhiking inspired by the remora suckerfish.

This study focuses on replicating the remora disc, which allows the Remore Suckersish to easily attach and detach to/ on moving sea-life, in order to create an adhesive disc for underwater hitchhiking. The potential application of this disc can spread from helping human divers, to helping remotely operated vehicles easily traverse the seafloor. The goal of the study was to easily replicate the Remora’s ability to attack to a variety of surfaces, including smooth surfaces, rough surfaces, and even shark skin.

This study utilized multimaterial three-dimensional printing techniques to fabricate the main disc structure whose stiffness spans three orders of magnitude. For functionality mimicking, the scientists fabricated carbon fiber spinules using laser machining techniques and attached them to soft actuator-controlled lamellae. The biomimetic prototype can attach to different surfaces and generate pull force up to 340x the weight of the disc prototype.

Using the prototype, the scientists designed a robot that has strong adhesion and hitchhiking of surfaces underwater. There is promise for the development of high-performance bioinspired robotic systems that may be used in a number of applications based on an understanding of the adhesive mechanisms used by remoras.

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