ANGELS

The aim of the ANGELS project is to design and build a prototype of a reconfigurable Anguilliform swimming robot able to split into smaller agents (and vice-versa), each equipped with a bio-inspired “electric sense” used both for recognition of objects and communication between agents. This mode of active perception, present in gymnotid and mormyrid fish, is based on the polarisation of certain regions of the fish body, so generating an electric field flowing through an electroreceptive skin that plays the role of an electric retina. These fishes’ use of changes in body morphology, adapted to their electroperception systems, will be embodied in the intelligent control of the reconfigurable ANGELS robot. The electric field generated around the robots can be considered as a prolongation of their material body in the surrounding water. This prolongation, that we name “electric-body”, can then be shaped through electric reconfigurations. Thus the intelligence encoded in the animals’ morphology will be applied to the design of a new generation of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles able to adapt to their environment and suited to a wide spectrum of uses, in particular in situations where vision cannot be used.