A new kind of robot swims the seas and soars the skies
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"This is a beautiful robot," says Glenna Clifton , an animal movement biologist at the University of Portland in Oregon who collaborates with roboticists but wasn't involved in this research project. She says the robot offers insights into what makes the flight biology of diving birds unique.

It also has many potential applications including observing the coastal ocean and monitoring something like a remote coral reef. The robot could fly to the reef — or something else like a pod of whales or an algal bloom — and then sample the water and collect data.

Such bio-inspired robots are fertile ground to learn about both nature and engineering. "The biology inspires the robotics," says Clifton, "but then also the robotics are used to understand the biology."

Designing a novel robot

Creating this robot took two years. "Thinking of a wing that could operate in both [air and water] somewhat efficiently seems implausible," Zufferey recalls thinking.

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