The shrimpfish as a model for a novel, highly maneuverable AUV

The shrimpfish, Aeoliscus strigatus, is an Indo-Pacific marine fish with a highly unusual posture - vertical with its head down - and remarkable maneuvering capabilities. It can translate straight up and down, turn in place and hover. These capabilities enable the shrimpfish to maneuver through complex tropical marine environments such as coral reefs and eel grass beds, and insert itself between the spines of sea urchins. Shrimpfish also use their maneuverability to track and capture tiny mobile crustaceans within the water column. An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) with such capabilities would have a number of interesting and potentially important applications in underwater inspection, sensing and sensor deployment. It will also serve to push the field of marine robotics into a challenging new area. We present the first results of a two-pronged biology and engineering research effort with the ultimate goal of developing an AUV with shrimpfish-like maneuverability. Biological measurements on real shrimpfish were performed to determine its hydrostatic stability. On the engineering side, a simple shrimpfish-inspired vehicle was developed as a testbed to study how fin motion can generate the different swimming behaviors seen in living Aeoliscus.