About the Soft Robotic Jellyfish

This paper takes inspiration from a jellyfish bell in order to create a battery powered and autonomous bio-inspired soft robot. A jellyfish was chosen due to its combination of speed and efficiency. This is due to the natural aerodynamics of the jellyfish as well as their use of a toroidal vortex. In addition to the swimming characteristics of a jellyfish, the animal is also naturally soft and flexible allowing for an easy translation of the jellyfish kinematics to soft robot. A soft robot was chosen because the final intention of this robot is to aid marine researchers in their studies of fragile ecosystems such as coral reefs.