Biohybrid robotic jellyfish for potential applications in biology, soft robotics, and ocean exploration

Using robotic systems to control live animals as biohybrid robots offers advantages, such as natural self-healing for damage tolerance and leveraging animal metabolism to offset power costs. In this work, we present a biohybrid robot that uses a microelectronic system to induce swimming in live jellyfish. By driving jellyfish bell contractions at faster frequencies than observed in natural behavior, we demonstrate enhanced swimming speeds of nearly threefold in laboratory and in situ experiments, with only a twofold increase in cost of transport to the animal. This suggests the possibility for both faster and more efficient swimming capabilities in jellyfish, and compared to other swimming robots, the microelectronic system uses 10 to 1000 times less external power per mass. The experimental results are consistent with a hydrodynamic model that uses morphological and time-dependent input parameters. With future work to increase maneuverability and incorporate various sensors, we can potentially use biohybrid robotic jellyfish as a tool to study jellyfish biology, address challenges in soft robotics, and monitor the ocean alongside traditional underwater vehicles.