Abstract
Ionic polymer–metal composite (IPMC) is a promising candidate for underwater sensing due to the merits of rapid response, flexibility, miniaturization, and self-powered nature. The high sensitivity of a sensor is vital for underwater robots. Inspired by the lateral line cilia of fish, a new water flow sensor system based on the multi-ciliated structure of the IPMC is presented to improve the sensitivity of the sensor. As illustrated by the experiments on oscillatory flow, the sensitivity and detection range of the multi-ciliated sensor reached 3.83 times and increased by about 39%, respectively, compared with that of a single sensor. In addition, an array composed of multi-ciliated systems of IPMCs was successfully applied to the location of a vibrating dipole, while the velocity prediction of underwater moving objects was also realized with a minimum average error rate of 1.70%. The system with high sensitivity proposed in this paper is promising to be an effective supplement to traditional underwater detection methods.
Highlights
The continuous progress of underwater equipment technology strengthens the demand for underwater detection methods
Inspired by the multi-ciliated structure of fish’s lateral line, we developed a water flow sensor based on multiple Ionic polymer–metal composite (IPMC)
The systems are denoted as Sen-Pi, where Sen-P represents sensors and i is the number of IPMC cilia in parallel
Summary
The continuous progress of underwater equipment technology strengthens the demand for underwater detection methods. Sensing signals will be produced by the unbalanced migration of internal ions due to the deformation of IPMC [Fig. 1(b)] It is suitable for underwater detection because of the sensing mechanism similar to the lateral line of fish. Abdulsadda and Tan proved the effectiveness of the IPMC lateral line experimentally in the localization of a dipole source under water.21 They focused on accurately locating and identifying the dipole using the optimization algorithm ulteriorly.. Inspired by the multi-ciliated structure of fish’s lateral line, we developed a water flow sensor based on multiple IPMCs. Following the principle of stacking style in circuit design, multiple IPMCs in parallel were applied to improve the total signal of the sensor. By integrating multi-ciliated IPMC systems, an array has been constructed and its ability of underwater location and velocity prediction has been proved
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