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Soft robots provide a pathway to accurately mimic biological creatures and be integrated into their environment with minimal invasion or disruption to their ecosystem. These robots made from soft deforming materials possess structural properties and behaviors similar to the bodies and organs of living creatures. However, they are difficult to develop in terms of integrated actuation and sensing, accurate modeling, and precise control. This article presents a soft-rigid hybrid robotic fish inspired by the Pangasius fish. The robot employs a flexible fin ray tail structure driven by a servo motor, to act as the soft body of the robot and provide the undulatory motion to the caudal fin of the fish. To address the modeling and control challenges, reinforcement learning (RL) is proposed as a model-free control strategy for the robot fish to swim and reach a specified target goal. By training and investigating the RL through experiments on real hardware, we illustrate the capability of the fish to learn and achieve the required task.

In the last decade, Elliptic Curves (ECs) have shown their efficacy as a safe fundamental component in encryption systems, mainly when used in Pseudorandom Number Generator (PRNG) design. This paper proposes a framework for designing EC-based PRNG and maps recent PRNG design techniques into the framework, classifying them as iterative and non-iterative. Furthermore, a PRNG is designed based on the framework and verified using the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) statistical test suite. The PRNG is then utilized in an image encryption system where statistical measures, differential attack measures, the NIST statistical test suite, and system key sensitivity analysis are used to demonstrate the system's security. The results are good and promising as compared with other related work.

Advances of soft robotics enabled better mimicking of biological creatures and closer realization of animals’ motion in the robotics field. The biological creature’s movement has morphology and flexibility that is problematic deportation to a bio-inspired robot. This paper aims to study the ability to mimic turtle motion using a soft pneumatic actuator (SPA) as a turtle flipper limb. SPA’s behavior is simulated using finite element analysis to design turtle flipper at 22 different geometrical configurations, and the simulations are conducted on a large pressure range (0.11–0.4 Mpa). The simulation results are validated using vision feedback with respect to varying the air pillow orientation angle. Consequently, four SPAs with different inclination angles are selected to build a bio-mimetic turtle, which is tested at two different driving configurations. The nonlinear dynamics of soft actuators, which is challenging to model the motion using traditional modeling techniques affect the turtle’s motion. Conclusively, according to kinematics behavior, the turtle motion path is modeled using the Echo State Network (ESN) method, one of the reservoir computing techniques. The ESN models the turtle path with respect to the actuators’ rotation motion angle with maximum root-mean-square error of 1.04 × 10 - 11 . The turtle is designed to enhance the robot interaction with living creatures by mimicking their limbs’ flexibility and the way of their motion.

Bio-impedance non-invasive measurement techniques usage is rapidly increasing in the agriculture industry. These measured impedance variations reflect tacit biochemical and biophysical changes of living and non-living tissues. Bio-impedance circuit modeling is an effective solution used in biology and medicine to fit the measured impedance. This paper proposes two new fractional-order bio-impedance plant stem models. These new models are compared with three commonly used bio-impedance fractional-order circuit models in plant modeling (Cole, Double Cole, and Fractional-order Double-shell). The two proposed models represent the characterization of the biological cellular morphology of the plant stem. Experiments are conducted on two samples of three different medical plant species from the family Lamiaceae , and each sample is measured at two inter-electrode spacing distances. Bio-impedance measurements are done using an electrochemical station (SP150) in the range of 100 Hz to 100 kHz. All employed models are compared by fitting the measured data to verify the efficiency of the proposed models in modeling the plant stem tissue. The proposed models give the best results in all inter-electrode spacing distances. Four different metaheuristic optimization algorithms are used in the fitting process to extract all models parameter and find the best optimization algorithm in the bio-impedance problems.

Nature and biological creatures are some of the main sources of inspiration for humans. Engineers have aspired to emulate these natural systems. As rigid systems become increasingly limited in their capabilities to perform complex tasks and adapt to their environment like living creatures, the need for soft systems has become more prominent due to the similar complex, compliant, and flexible characteristics they share with intelligent natural systems. This review provides an overview of the recent developments in the soft robotics field, with a focus on the underwater application frontier.

Impedance spectroscopy has became an essential non-invasive tool for quality assessment measurements of the biochemical and biophysical changes in plant tissues. The electrical behaviour of biological tissues can be captured by fitting its bio-impedance data to a suitable circuit model. This paper investigates the use of power-law filters in circuit modelling of bio-impedance. The proposed models are fitted to experimental data obtained from eight different fruit types using a meta-heuristic optimization method (the Water Cycle Algorithm (WCA)). Impedance measurements are obtained using a Biologic SP150 electrochemical station, and the percentage error between the actual impedance and the fitted models’ impedance are reported. It is found that a circuit model consisting of a combination of two second-order power-law low-pass filters shows the least fitting error.

Nano zero-valent iron (nZVI), bimetallic Nano zero-valent iron-copper ( Fe 0 - Cu), and fava bean activated carbon-supported with bimetallic Nano zero-valent iron-copper (AC- F e 0 -Cu) were prepared and characterized by DLS, FT-IR, XRD, and SEM. The influence of the synthesized adsorbents on the adsorption and removal of soluble anionic methyl orange (M.O) dye was investigated using UV-V spectroscopy. The influence of numerous operational parameters was studied at varied pH (3–9), time intervals (15–180 min), and dye concentrations (25–1000 ppm) to establish the best removal conditions. The maximum removal efficiency of M.O. using the prepared adsorbent materials reached about 99%. The removal efficiency is modeled using response surface methodology (RSM). The Bimetallic F e 0 -Cu, the best experimental and predicted removal efficiency is 96.8% RE. For the H2SO4 chemical AC- F e 0 -Cu, the best experimental and removal efficiency is 96.25% RE. The commercial AC-Fe0–Cu, the best experimental and predicted removal efficiency is 94.93%RE. This study aims to produce low-cost adsorbents such as Bimetallic Fe0-Cu, and Fava Bean Activated Carbon-Supported Bimetallic AC-Fe0-Cu to treat the industrial wastewater from the anionic methyl orange (M.O) dye and illustrate its ability to compete H2SO4 chemical AC-Fe0-Cu, and commercial AC-Fe0-Cu.

Soft and flexible E-skin advances are a subset of soft robotics field where the soft morphology of human skin is mimicked. The number of prototypes that conformed the use of biological tissues within the structure of soft robots—to develop “Biohybrid Soft Robots”—has increased in the last decade. However, no research was conducted to realize Biohybrid E-skin. In this paper, a novel biohybrid E-skin that provides tactile sensing is developed. The biohybrid E-skin highly mimics the human skin softness and morphology and can sense forces as low as 0.01 newton . The tactile sensing feature is augmented through the use of Aloe Vera pulp, embedded in underlying channel, where the change in its bioimpedance is related to the amount of force exerted on the E-skin surface. The biohybrid E-skin employs high biomimicry as the sensorial output is an oscillating signal similar to signals sent from the human sensing neurons to the brain. After investigating different channel geometries, types of filling tissues, and usage of two silicone materials, their frequency-force behaviour is modelled mathematically. Finally, a functional multichannel prototype “ImpEdded Skin” is developed. This prototype could efficiently detect the position of a tactile touch. This work employs the development of discrete sensing system that exhibits morphological computation that consequently enhances performance.

A few special chaotic systems without unstable equilibrium points have been investigated recently. It is worth noting that these special systems are different from normal chaotic ones because the classical Shilnikov criterion cannot be used to prove chaos of such systems. A novel unusual chaotic system without equilibrium is proposed in this work. We discover dynamical properties as well as the synchronization of the new system. Furthermore, a physical realization of the system without equilibrium is also implemented to illustrate its feasibility.

This study shows that pinched hysteresis can be observed in simple non‐linear resonance circuits containing a single diode that behaves as a voltage‐controlled switch. Mathematical models are derived and numerically validated for both series and parallel resonator circuits. The lobe area of the pinched loop is found to increase with increased frequency and multiple pinch points are possible with an odd‐symmetrical non‐linearity such as a cubic non‐linearity. Experiments have been performed to prove the existence of pinched hysteresis with a single diode and with two anti‐parallel diodes. The formation of a pinched loop in these circuits confirms the following: (1) pinched hysteresis is not a fingerprint of memristors, and (2) the existence of a non‐linearity is essential for generating this behaviour. Finally, an application in a digital logic circuit is validated.