Journal of Bionic Engineering (2022) 19:643–656   https://doi.org/10.1007/s42235-022-00164-6 

Task Planning and Collaboration of Jellyfsh-inspired Multiple Spherical Underwater Robots 

Ruochen An1  · Shuxiang Guo1,2 · Yuanhua Yu3  · Chunying Li1  · Tendeng Awa1 

1 Graduate School of Engineering, Kagawa University, Takamatsu, Kagawa 761-0396, Japan
2 Key Laboratory of Convergence Medical Engineering System and Healthcare Technology, The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, School of Life Science and Technology, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
3 School of Life Science and Technology, Changchun University of Science and Technology, Changchun 130022, China

Abstract  Task planning and collaboration of multiple robots have broad application prospects and value in the feld of robotics. To improve the performance and working efciency of our Spherical Underwater Robot (SUR), we propose a multi-robot control strategy that can realize the task planning and collaboration of multiple robots. To complete real-time information sharing of multiple robots, we frst build an acoustic communication system with excellent communication performance under low noise ratio conditions. Then, the task planning and collaboration control strategy adjust the SURs so that they maintain their positions in the desired formation when the formation moves. Multiple SURs can move along desired trajectories in the expected formation. The control strategy of each SUR uses only its information and limited information of its neighboring SURs. Finally, based on theoretical analysis and experiments, we evaluate the validity and reliability of the proposed strategy. In comparison to the traditional leader–follower method, it is not necessary to designate a leader and its followers explicitly in our system; thus, important advantages, such as fault tolerance, are achieved.Keywords  Task planning · Collaboration control · Multiple spherical underwater robots (SUR) · Shape keeping

Underwater target detection of multiple spherical underwater robots