Abstract
Bio-inspired robotic fish hold strong promise for underwater missions. This paper deals with the design and control issues of a miniature free-swimming robotic fish with multiple sensors. Specifically, a synthesized mechanical design scheme mainly relying on a two-link serial mechanism and a pair of mechanical pectoral fins is first presented. Next, a bio-inspired Central Pattern Generator (CPG) based control method aided by feedback information from multiple sensors of various types to achieve three-dimensional swimming is proposed. Finally, experimental results on the 35-centimetre-long robotic fish verify the efficacy of the proposed mechatronic design and control methods. It is found that the CPG control combined with sensory information greatly contributes to swimming ability and intelligence of the robotic fish.
Highlights
With the advancement of fast-moving robot technolo‐ gies, there has been a rapid growth of interest world‐ wide in underwater exploration, due to its rich marine resources and element of the unknown
To verify the feasibility of the proposed miniature robotic design scheme and the control methods, some tests on the actual robot were performed in a pool with the dimensions 500 cm long, 400 cm wide and 150 cm deep
This paper presents a design for a miniature, 35-centimetre long robotic fish with multiple sensors, which is propelled by a combination of two active joints and a pair of mechan‐ ical pectoral fins
Summary
With the advancement of fast-moving robot technolo‐ gies, there has been a rapid growth of interest world‐ wide in underwater exploration, due to its rich marine resources and element of the unknown. Underwater vehicles are becoming more common in a variety of real-world applications, such as underwater exploration, search and recovery, as well as military purposes. As demands for energy-efficient, highly manoeuvrable and stealthy autonomous underwater vehicles are rapidly increasing, researchers have turned to nature for a great variety of design inspirations [1,2,3]. Fish-inspired swimming robots (hereafter termed robotic fish) have shown superior performance in efficient propulsion and high manoeuvra‐ bility compared with conventional underwater vehicles propelled by rotary propellers [4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. The existing studies have been almost exclusively focused on the theoretical aspects and development of large robotic fishes with body length of up to 50 cm or longer
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