PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD
PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD
A smarter robotic anchor that can dig in was recently invented at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by borrowing techniques from one of nature's best diggers—the razor clam.
MIT's smart anchors will be able to burrow down into the seabed like a clam to securely hold position, then dig themselves back out when it's time to move, according to MIT engineering professor Anette "Peko" Hosoi. Together with doctoral candidate Amos Winter and engineers at Bluefin Robotics (Cambridge, Mass.), MIT is mimicking the razor clam to build its robotic anchors.
"With anchors you usually set them and you're done," said Hosoi, "but wouldn't it be great if you send down an anchor and had it dig in, then had a remote you click to say, 'OK, I'm ready to move,' and your anchor digs itself up, so you can move and then it reset somewhere else?"
Hosoi, who specializes in novel underwater propulsion mechanisms in nature, wanted to model an existing sea creature for their smart anchor project—one that has adapted well to moving through sediments on the seafloor. Winter took on the task of comparing the abilities of hundreds of sea creatures who burrow in the sand, concluding that razor clams are the best.
"We found that razor claims are essentially the Ferrari of underwater digging organisms," said Winter, who became a licensed clam digger during the course of the research. "They are very, very fast at digging—about a centimeter per second. That's so fast that you actually have to chase them as you dig after them burrowing in the ground. Additionally, they are super-efficient—on the energy in a AA battery they can go over a half kilometer [0.3 miles] through soil."
In measurements, the team found that razor clams—which are about 7 inches long and can dig to depths of 28 inches—would need to be seven times stronger to force themselves that deep in the sand. In addition, the amount of energy they expend to burrow in, compared with the force required to pull them out, is about 10 times better than anything else. To unravel the mystery behind its digging skills, the team built a transparent observation tank to watch the clam digging.
"We figured out that the trick behind what's going on is that the animal makes a little pocket of quicksand around their body and then moves through that quicksand before it has time to set up and pack again," said Winter.
By first using its "foot" to clear a space below it, then quickly opening and shutting its shell to fluidize the sand around it, the razor claim is able to pull itself deeper than would be possible going through packed sand. So far the researchers have mimicked the opening and shutting and are currently designing a footlike mechanism for pushing downward through the resultant fluidized sand.
Funding was provided by Bluefin, Battelle and Chevron.
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