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<p>In nature, jellyfish contract the muscles of their bell-shaped bodies to expel water backward, leveraging reactive forces to propel themselves forward. Drawing inspiration from this mechanism, researchers have sought to replicate jellyfish’s exceptional locomotive traits using soft materials and flexible actuation methods. However, most soft jellyfish robots based on smart materials exhibit limited motion performance, primarily due to simplistic actuation approaches and structural designs. Herein, we propose a soft jellyfish robot integrated with a dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) and a webbed foot structure. The custom-designed soft actuator features a cylindrical configuration with a large deformation capability (105°), enabling it to effectively mimic the contraction and bending behavior of biological muscles. Meanwhile, the webbed foot structure reduces swimming resistance and enhances the robot’s locomotive efficiency. We conducted a comprehensive investigation into the robot’s motion performance under varying actuation parameters and webbed foot geometries. Additionally, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were employed to compare and analyze the robot’s locomotive characteristics across different webbed foot structures. The results demonstrate that the passively deformable webbed foot structure reduces return resistance and increases average thrust. Specifically, the jellyfish robot equipped with this passively deformable webbed foot achieves a maximum swimming speed of 0.32 BL/s (body lengths per second), approximately twice the speed of the robot with an integral webbed foot (0.16 BL/s). Furthermore, through optimized control strategies, the jellyfish robot driven by a bilateral bionic actuator not only exhibits more lifelike swimming postures but also reaches a swimming speed of up to 0.49 BL/s, outperforming most smart material-based jellyfish robots. This study not only significantly enhances the motion performance of jellyfish robots but also presents biomimetic structures and actuation methods that hold potential for application in other soft robots and flexible electronic devices.</p>

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Design and characterization of a dielectric elastomer actuator-driven biomimetic jellyfish robot with multimodal motion capabilities and improved swimming efficiency

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年5月22日

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  • Shuo Li,
  • Ruiqian Wang,
  • Yiwei Zhang,
  • Chuang Zhang,
  • Wenguang Yang

摘要

In nature, jellyfish contract the muscles of their bell-shaped bodies to expel water backward, leveraging reactive forces to propel themselves forward. Drawing inspiration from this mechanism, researchers have sought to replicate jellyfish’s exceptional locomotive traits using soft materials and flexible actuation methods. However, most soft jellyfish robots based on smart materials exhibit limited motion performance, primarily due to simplistic actuation approaches and structural designs. Herein, we propose a soft jellyfish robot integrated with a dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) and a webbed foot structure. The custom-designed soft actuator features a cylindrical configuration with a large deformation capability (105°), enabling it to effectively mimic the contraction and bending behavior of biological muscles. Meanwhile, the webbed foot structure reduces swimming resistance and enhances the robot’s locomotive efficiency. We conducted a comprehensive investigation into the robot’s motion performance under varying actuation parameters and webbed foot geometries. Additionally, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were employed to compare and analyze the robot’s locomotive characteristics across different webbed foot structures. The results demonstrate that the passively deformable webbed foot structure reduces return resistance and increases average thrust. Specifically, the jellyfish robot equipped with this passively deformable webbed foot achieves a maximum swimming speed of 0.32 BL/s (body lengths per second), approximately twice the speed of the robot with an integral webbed foot (0.16 BL/s). Furthermore, through optimized control strategies, the jellyfish robot driven by a bilateral bionic actuator not only exhibits more lifelike swimming postures but also reaches a swimming speed of up to 0.49 BL/s, outperforming most smart material-based jellyfish robots. This study not only significantly enhances the motion performance of jellyfish robots but also presents biomimetic structures and actuation methods that hold potential for application in other soft robots and flexible electronic devices.