Schneier - Friday Squid Blogging: Robot Squid Propulsion

Interesting research:

The squid robot is powered primarily by compressed air, which it stores in a cylinder in its nose (do squids have noses?). The fins and arms are controlled by pneumatic actuators. When the robot wants to move through the water, it opens a value to release a modest amount of compressed air; releasing the air all at once generates enough thrust to fire the robot squid completely out of the water.

The jumping that you see at the end of the video is preliminary work; we're told that the robot squid can travel between 10 and 20 meters by jumping, whereas using its jet underwater will take it just 10 meters. At the moment, the squid can only fire its jet once, but the researchers plan to replace the compressed air with something a bit denser, like liquid CO2, which will allow for extended operation and multiple jumps. There's also plenty of work to do with using the fins for dynamic control, which the researchers say will "reveal the superiority of the natural flying squid movement."

I can't find the paper online.

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered.

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from Schneier on Security https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/08/friday_squid_bl_690.html