Underwater robot designs inspired by the behavior and morphological characteristics of aquatic animals can provide reinforced mobility and energy efficiency. In the past two decades, the emerging materials science and integrated circuit technology have been combined and applied to various types of bionic soft underwater miniaturized robots by researchers around the world. Further, the potential applications of biomimetic soft micro-swimmers in the biological and medical fields have been explored. Here, this paper reviews the development of biomimetic soft tiny swimmers, which are designed based on a variety of intelligent materials and control strategies. This review focuses on the various actuation mechanisms of soft tiny swimmers reported in the past two decades and classifies these robots into four categories: fish-like, snake-like, jellyfish-like and microbial-inspired ones. Besides, this review considers the practical challenges faced by actuation mechanisms of each type of robot, and summarizes and prospects how these challenges affect the potential applications of robots in real environments.

受水生动物行为和形态特征启发的水下机器人设计可以提供增强的移动性和能源效率。近二十年来，新兴的材料科学和集成电路技术被世界各地的研究人员结合并应用于各种类型的仿生软水下小型化机器人。此外，还探索了仿生软微型游泳者在生物和医学领域的潜在应用。在此，本文回顾了基于多种智能材料和控制策略设计的仿生软体微型游泳器的发展。本综述重点关注过去二十年报道的软体小游泳者的各种驱动机制，并将这些机器人分为四类：鱼形、蛇形、水母状和微生物启发的。此外，本综述还考虑了每种类型机器人的驱动机制所面临的实际挑战，并总结和展望了这些挑战如何影响机器人在现实环境中的潜在应用。