Engineers at EPFL and MIT have created a robot inspired by diving birds that weighs less than 300 grams and can seamlessly swim underwater and fly through air.
The robot, tested in Lake Geneva, swam at almost one meter per second and flew at around 6 meters per second using flapping wings and a motorized tail, achieving these feats without feet—unlike most diving birds.
The design could enable oceanographers and marine biologists to deploy low-cost autonomous robots to sample hazardous aquatic regions that traditional ocean vessels cannot safely access.
What happened
Engineers at EPFL and MIT built a flapping-wing robot weighing less than 300 grams that can swim underwater and fly through air, transitioning between the two like diving birds. Tests in a water tank and Lake Geneva showed the robot could swim at almost one meter per second and fly at around 6 meters per second using wing sizes of 80 centimeters and flapping frequencies around 5 hertz. Results were published in Science.
Why it matters
The robot demonstrates that aerial-aquatic vehicles can work with wings alone—without feet, unlike most diving birds—opening a path to a new class of drones for ocean science. Researchers envision deploying such robots from boats or shore to sample dangerous aquatic regions (icebergs, whale pods, port facilities) at a fraction of the cost of traditional ocean vessels, then returning data automatically.
What to watch
The team is improving wing design to enable turning in addition to flapping, and plans to test performance in turbulent conditions (choppy water, wind) before deploying the vehicle to answer real ocean science questions.
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The robot represents a convergence of biomimetic engineering and practical ocean science. Engineers have long studied diving birds—about 100 species can both swim and fly—to understand how animals move through two physically distinct fluids. Air and water have vastly different densities and viscosity, so wings that work in one medium must be carefully adapted for the other. By testing combinations of wing size, flapping frequency, and tail angle in a water tank and Lake Geneva, the team discovered that an 80-centimeter wing with around 5 hertz flapping frequency and a 70-degree pitch angle allows smooth transitions from water to air.
A key insight emerged from comparing the robot's design to its biological inspirations. Most diving birds use their feet to paddle at the surface before taking flight; the EPFL–MIT team found that their wing-only design eliminates this requirement. This difference is significant for engineering because it simplifies the robot's mechanics and reduces moving parts, making it more durable and easier to control. The hydrophobic wing coating helps shed water, mimicking adaptations in real diving birds.
The practical motivation is clear: oceanographers and marine biologists struggle to sample hazardous aquatic environments—floating ice, whale pods, isolated facilities—without risking expensive research vessels. A small, autonomous, wing-flapping robot that can launch from a boat, fly to a target, dive for samples, and return could dramatically reduce cost and risk. The researchers are now refining the design to allow the wings to turn as well as flap, and to validate performance in realistic choppy waters and wind before deploying the robot for real ocean science missions.
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