“Jellyfish” Smart Sensor Made With Electroactive Ionic Polymer Nanocomposites

This Phase I Navy SBIR effort will examine the design and development feasibility of an underwater biomimetic swimming structure resembling a jellyfish. The proposed underwater biomimetic swimming structure or artificial jellyfish will be fabricated with electroactive ionic polymer Platinum nanocomposites capable of underwater distributed sensing, transduction and actuation. The proposed artificial jellyfish will be a self-contained and relatively buoyant structure including, locomotion in the form of jellyfish propulsion, energy harvesting by mechanoelectric transduction and distributed sensing capabilities. The proposed artificial jellyfish will also house any electronics processing and/or communications package within its bell. The proposed effort will also conduct underwater experiments to predict the performance of the proposed underwater biomimetic swimming structure based on laboratory results currently available for sensing, transduction and actuation capabilities of ionic polymer metal nanocomposites. The proposed structure will also be able to sense sonar or acoustic pressure and/or intensity along with energy harvesting and storage capability in addition to jellyfish like propulsion capability for both variable depth and horizontal motions.