{"id":430,"date":"2026-02-10T09:00:25","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T09:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braininspiredrobotics.com\/?p=430"},"modified":"2026-02-10T09:00:33","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T09:00:33","slug":"how-to-build-energy-efficiency-and-neural-control-of-continuous-versus-intermittent-swimming-in-a-fishlike-robot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/braininspiredrobotics.com\/?p=430","title":{"rendered":"How to build energy efficiency and neural control of continuous versus intermittent swimming in a fishlike robot?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Xiangxiao Liu et al. ,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/scirobotics.adw7868\"><strong>Energy efficiency and neural control of continuous versus intermittent swimming in a fishlike robot<\/strong><\/a>.Sci. Robot.11,eadw7868(2026).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Abstract<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;<strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Many aquatic animals, including larval zebrafish, exhibit intermittent locomotion, moving via discrete swimming bouts followed by passive glides rather than continuous movement<\/span><\/strong>. However, fundamental questions remain unresolved: <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">What neural mechanisms drive this behavior, and what functional benefits does this behavior offer?<\/span><\/strong> Specifically, <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">is intermittent swimming more energy efficient than continuous swimming, and, if so, by what mechanism?<\/span><\/strong> Live-animal experiments pose technical challenges, because observing or manipulating internal physiological states in freely swimming animals is difficult. Hence, <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">we developed ZBot, a bioinspired robot that replicates the morphological features of larval zebrafish<\/span><\/strong>. Embedding <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">a network model inspired by neural circuits and kinematic recordings of larval zebrafish<\/span><\/strong>, ZBot reproduces diverse swimming gaits of larval zebrafish bout-and-glide locomotion. By testing ZBot swimming in both turbulent and viscous flow regimes, we confirm that viscous flow markedly reduces traveled distance but minimally affects turning angles. We further tested ZBot in these regimes to analyze how key parameters (tail-beating frequency and amplitude) influence velocity and power use. <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Our results show that intermittent swimming lowers the energetic cost of transport across most achievable velocities in both flow regimes<\/span><\/strong>. Although prior work linked this efficiency to fluid dynamics, like reduced glide drag, we identify an extra mechanism: better actuator efficiency. Mechanistically, this benefit arises because intermittent locomotion shifts the robot\u2019s actuators to higher inherent efficiency. <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>This work introduces a fishlike robot capable of biomimetic intermittent swimming\u2014with demonstrated energy advantages at relevant speeds\u2014and provides general insights into the factors shaping locomotor behavior and efficiency in aquatic animals<\/strong><\/span>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Xiangxiao Liu et al. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/scirobotics.adw7868\"><strong>Energy efficiency and neural control of continuous versus intermittent swimming in a fishlike robot<\/strong><\/a>. Science Robotics.11,eadw7868(2026).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Xiangxiao Liu et al. ,Energy efficiency and neural control of continuous versus intermittent swimming in a fishlike robot.Sci. Robot.11,eadw7868(2026). Abstract &#8220;Many aquatic animals, including larval zebrafish, exhibit intermittent locomotion, moving via discrete swimming bouts followed by passive glides rather than continuous movement. However, fundamental questions remain unresolved: What neural mechanisms drive this behavior, and what [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[149,148,151,150],"class_list":["post-430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brain-inspired-robotics","tag-energy-efficiency","tag-fishlike-robot","tag-intermittent-swimming","tag-neural-control"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/braininspiredrobotics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/braininspiredrobotics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/braininspiredrobotics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/braininspiredrobotics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/braininspiredrobotics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=430"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/braininspiredrobotics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":432,"href":"https:\/\/braininspiredrobotics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions\/432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/braininspiredrobotics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/braininspiredrobotics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/braininspiredrobotics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}