This federal Project Grant award of $331,319 from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) supports collaborative research between academia and engineering to understand how fish achieve rapid maneuverability in underwater environments. The research seeks to test the hypothesis that fish dynamically modulate their body damping, or resistance to bending speed, to enable fast accelerations and tight turns. The investigators will conduct experiments on live swimming fish and use a custom biorobot platform to measure the mechanical properties and fluid dynamics involved. The findings are expected to deepen the understanding of fish locomotion and enable the development of highly agile biorobots for applications such as environmental monitoring and biodiversity studies. This interdisciplinary project integrates biological insights with robotic design to engage the public and train future scholars from K-12 to university levels. No subawards are planned under this grant, which has an award date of September 1, 2024 and a completion date of August 31, 2027.
Generated 3/4/25, 8:30 AM