Current research on biomimetic robotics at SSSA: the case of the octopus robot

After a brief introduction on BioRobotics research at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, the case of study of our research on the robotic octopus will be presented. The octopus is a marine invertebrate with amazing motor capabilities and intelligent behaviour. Its body has no rigid structures and has interesting characteristics, from an engineering viewpoint: infinite number of degrees of freedom (dof), variable and controllable stiffness, high dexterity, highly distributed control. The octopus represents a biological demonstration of how effective behaviour in the real world is tightly related to the morphology of the body.

The grand challenge of the work is investigating and understanding the principles that give rise to the octopus sensory-motor capabilities and at incorporating them in new design approaches and robotics technologies to build an embodied artefact and with similar performance in water, in terms of dexterity, speed, control, flexibility, and applicability.

Very strict requirements limit the use of traditional technologies and push the research on several fields. In particular in this lecture new actuation technologies and new design approaches suitable for this aim will be shown.