TU Delft student Sander van den Berg has invented a 3D-printed robotic fish that swims through water at a record-breaking 0.85 metres per second.
The Industrial Design Engineering masters student created the high-speed underwater drone as his graduate project from the Delft University of Technology.

Van den Berg claims the speed of 0.85 metres a second is faster than any previously designed robotic fish, such as MIT's SoFi.
The low-cost prototype is made using 3D-printed plastic for the rigid body, a piece of pliable sheet plastic for the passive segment and a soft silicone skin for the active segment.

The robotic fish is bright orange, like the clown fish from Finding Nemo. The key to fast speed is the two-part tail design: one part active, one part passive. Van den Berg used computer modelling to optimise the design of these two parts so they would work in symbiosis to mimic the fluent S-shaped tail motion of thunniform swimming ? the movement style of the ocean's fastest fish, such as tuna.

His model helps to overcome some of the challenges of designing a robot with this type of locomotion, where the oscillation throws off the object's stability, causing it to sway and roll.

A motor situated in the fish's head pulls the tail's jointed active segment from side to side.
The resulting forward motion is amplified by the adjoining passive segment of the tail, which continues the flapping motion and bends with the resistance of the surrounding water.

Engineers have made m...