A remotely controlled Marangoni surfer

Drawing motivation from organisms that effectively traverse the air-water interface, we conceptualized and created a self-powered and remotely-controlled robotic platform destined for practical applications. Prioritizing drag reduction and biomimicry in design, our robotic surfer relies solely on the Marangoni effect for both propulsion and change of direction. To make this engineering challenge a reality, we developed custom-made flow control and steering mechanisms. These features were complemented with integrated power and fuel sources, and a remote transmitter, a receiver, and two servos, overall resulting in a non-tethered robotic surfer capable of self-propulsion and steering. Our experimental trials investigating the robot's transnational motion indicate that there is a clear positive trend in the speed with increasing the release rate of the propellant in the form of a power law. We rationalize this behavior using a simple scaling analysis based on an energy argument.