Design and simulation of artificial fish lateral line

Zhijie Tang,Bin Fu,Hao Feng,Zhen Wang,Jiaqi Lu,Weiwei Chen,Jingtao Lei

doi:10.1177/1729881418824826

Zhijie Tang, Bin Fu + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/1729881418824826

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Abstract

Fishes can avoid colliding with obstacles and track baits depending on the lateral distributed sense nodes which can sense the pressure variances of the surrounding flow field. Fish often uses the lateral-line system as their only means for navigation, especially under poor visual conditions. This sensing mechanism provides a new perspective for researchers and engineers to build such a sensing system that could be applied to control and near field navigation for underwater robots and vehicles. In this article, a pressure-sensing-based is proposed, with 10 pressure sensors acting as lateral line and use the three-dimensional printer to print the fish structure and install the artificial lateral line on it. Through preliminary experiments and numerical simulation, we obtain the pressure sensor data. By comparing the experimental data with the numerical simulation data, it can be verified that the pressure variation of the pressure sensor in the numerical simulation data is consistent with that in the experimental data. The artificial lateral line provides a new sense to man-made underwater vehicles and marine robots, so that they can sense like fish.

Highlights

As the scope of human activities becomes more and more extensive, it is necessary to guarantee the supply of all kinds of energy, which results in the present situation of the shortage of resources
The pressure sensors are arranged on the fish-shaped structure which is printed by the 3-D printer
The feasibility and accuracy of the artificial fish lateral line were verified by comparing the experimental data with the numerical simulation data

Summary

Introduction

As the scope of human activities becomes more and more extensive, it is necessary to guarantee the supply of all kinds of energy, which results in the present situation of the shortage of resources. Human utilization of marine resources is very limited due to the complexity of the marine environment and the lack of light in the seafloor For this reason, people are developing all kinds of sophisticated instruments and sensing detection devices such as snake robot[2,3] to assist mankind in the further exploration. The artificial lateral line is a method to sense complex environment, which is different from the previous engineering methods, and to improve the sensitivity of underwater vehicle motion perception in the water environment. It provides more precise perceptual conditions and control information for underwater obstacle avoidance and its own path planning, which makes the underwater robot achieve accurate position and pose control in water. The pressure changes of S1–S8 pressure sensor were monitored by FLUENT simulation under the condition that the angle between the lateral line of artificial fish and the direction of incoming flow was 90 and 45, respectively

The lateral line with an angle of 90 to the flow direction

Findings

Conclusion and future works