A robot ship built inspired by ancient plesiosaurus

While plesiosaurus is extinct, modern engineers are inspired by their swimming method for a new robot ship.

Previously, Plesiosaurus was a reptile breathing air with a long neck and slender body thriving in the early Jurassic period, 135-120 million years ago. Plesiosaurus used four wing-like flippers and used muscles to swim.

According to Gabriel Weymouth, an associate professor at Southampton University's Maritime and Maritime Academy, his team has built a robot ship, called Atlantis, based on plesiosaurus swimming style, which can give fully exploit high performance on water.

Professor Weymouth said: "The students built a completely autonomous robot to run on two engines, one for each side."

"To achieve this, each glider rotates freely on its axis and does not require too many motors, sensors, or control systems. This simplifies the mechanism and reduces costs. for the ship ".

The shaft of each glider is optimized by using open source dynamic software to maximize thrust efficiency. When tested, the researchers found that the ship was quite fast and capable of operating.

This work demonstrates that a very simple mechanism can be used to take advantage of parallel flipper improvements in the same way that plesiosaurs use to move.

Researchers will continue to optimize this design, control and shape of the ship, in an effort to develop a self-driving ship in the future.

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