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A research team in South Korea He developed a soft robot named Octoid It can mimic the movement and behavior of an octopus in its natural environment. The ‘three-in-one’ robot system enables it to change colours, move and capture prey in a way that closely resembles an aquatic animal.
While the scientific world has been working on designing robots modeled after octopuses for more than a decade, this is the first time scientists have been able to combine the way an octopus moves and camouflages itself into a single robot.
Octoid was built by researchers from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, led by a scientist named Dae-Yun Kim.
“We aim to expand this technology to include the development of intelligent soft machines, such as self-aware, reflective, learning-based soft robots,” Kim said in a statement on Thursday.
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Colorful crystals
The octopus’s legs are camouflaged like the octopus pictured above.
The base material used in Octoid is called photonic crystal polymer. It’s a Nanostructured material Which can do interesting things when light passes through them. By separating and reflecting specific wavelengths of light, This type of polymer It can display brilliant colors within its structure.
Today, photonic crystal polymers have many Real world applicationssuch as high-tech sensors, telecommunications and Visual computing. But using these materials to make soft robots is still a fairly new and emerging field in robotics.
The researchers used polymers to give the robot a special structure that has the ability to move in a smooth and flexible way while changing colors. The team was able to control the robot using electrical signals that caused microscopic contraction and expansion, causing the octoid to change from blue to green to red.
Water robots
The octopus has a unique body Have interested Scientists For years. We have seen Robots that Move like Claws of octopus from a variety of laboratories and companies. It’s not just octopuses; Sea creatures It seems that Yasser The imagination of roboticists around the world.
The team behind Octoid says the robot offers new possibilities for… Biomimicry Soft robotics technology. They say the technology demonstrated in Octoid’s body has the potential to help in industries such as deep-sea rescue, marine environmental monitoring, hospital robotics to help people reach further, as well as military applications.
“Through this research, we have obtained materials for soft robots that can be applied in various fields, including autonomous adaptive robots, military camouflage systems, marine exploration robots, and micro-medical robotics,” Kim said.
The paper Originally published October 15, 2025 in Advanced Functional Materials.