A comparative study of multi-tentacled underwater robot with different self-steering behaviors: Maneuvering and cruising modes

Based on the concept of same structure but different laws, we propose two driving modes, maneuvering and cruising, using multiple tentacles of cephalopods as biomimetic prototypes. These two modes are distinguished by transient or continuous kinematic laws and can achieve self-steering behaviors with different features. The computational evolution process between this underwater robot and the flow field is solved on the OpenFOAM platform. We nest the secondary developed solver with dynamic overlapping mesh technology and integrate multiple functional modules. The numerical results show that for the maneuvering mode, the robot achieves rapid turning by collectively generating high-intensity pressure and vorticity fields during the upstroke of tentacles. This mode is suitable for application scenarios that require real-time direction adjustment, such as obstacle avoidance and emergency response. For the cruising mode, the robot relies on continuous asymmetric swing of their tentacles to generate stable yaw moment, and the navigation trajectory presents a fan-shaped pattern with serrated edges. This mode is suitable for purposeful application scenarios such as anti-interference stability and advance prediction.