Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Bio-Inspired Flow Sensing For Underwater Guidance And Navigation, Levi Devries

Link Foundation Ocean Engineering and Instrumentation Fellowship Reports

Stream-dwelling fish and aquatic mammals have an innate ability to navigate often-tumultuous environments with impressive precision, a highly desirable trait for underwater vehicle applications. For example, trout use their lateral line to sense vortices shed by an upstream obstacle and slalom between the vortices to reduce energy expenditure compared to free-stream swimming [3]. Moreover, harbor seals can use their whiskers to follow the trail of flow disturbances created in the wake of an object that has passed minutes before [4]. Recent developments in materials science have produced sensors that can measure local flow velocity similar to seal whiskers, and integration …