Meeting Abstract
External control of freely swimming jellyfish can facilitate testing of hypotheses regarding the evolution of efficient locomotion. It also enables an approach to soft robotics that simultaneously addresses longstanding challenges related to actuation, control, and power requirements in applications such as ocean monitoring. Here, we present a biohybrid robot that uses implantable microelectronics to induce swimming in native Aurelia aurita. Measurements show that propulsion can be significantly enhanced by driving the body contraction frequency above natural behavior, with an observed peak enhancement up to three times faster than natural swimming. However, biological constraints at higher frequencies can decrease swimming performance. The existence of latent enhanced performance has implications for the evolution and ecology of swimming animals, and it can potentially be leveraged to expand the performance envelope of biohybrid robots relative to native animals.
