Design and characterization of a miniature free-swimming robotic fish based on multi-material 3D printing

Abstract

Research in animal behavior is increasingly benefiting from the field of robotics, whereby robots are being continuously integrated in a number of hypothesis-driven studies. A variety of robotic fish have been designed after the morphophysiology of live fish to study social behavior. Of the current design factors limiting the mimicry of live fish, size is a critical drawback, with available robotic fish generally exceeding the size of popular fish species for laboratory experiments. Here, we present the design and testing of a novel free-swimming miniature robotic fish for animal-robot studies. The robotic fish capitalizes on recent advances in multi-material three-dimensional printing that afford the integration of a range of material properties in a single print task. This capability has been leveraged in a novel design of a robotic fish, where waterproofing and kinematic functionalities are incorporated in the robotic fish. Particle image velocimetry is leveraged to systematically examine thrust production, and independent experiments are conducted in a water tunnel to evaluate drag. This information is utilized to aid the study of the forward locomotion of the robotic fish, through reduced-order modeling and experiments. Swimming efficiency and turning maneuverability is demonstrated through target experiments. This robotic fish prototype is envisaged as a tool for animal-robot interaction studies, overcoming size limitations of current design.

Predicting simulation of flow induced by IPMC oscillation in fluid environment

“…As expected, fluid motion is almost completely along the IPMC axis, causing a momentum exchange, that is responsible for thrust production. Fluid motion is restricted to a rather confined region in the vicinity of the tip of the IPMC, as observed in Chae et al [25] and Phamduy et al [19]. A flow jet is revealed from the tip of IPMC body, where coherent fluid structures are shedding into the wake flow.…”

“…Since the flow induced by the IPMC under water motion is restricted towards its tip vicinity, cf. [18,25].…”

“…Bioinspired swimmer robot designs are often successful in mimicking the general swimming locomotion of aquatic animals [6,18]. For instance, fish-inspired swimmers propelled by IPMCs has been extensively studied and designed based on their intended locomotion patterns (see, e.g., [2,5,7,12,13,20]).…”

Mechatronic Design and Manufacturing of the Intelligent Robotic Fish for Bio-Inspired Swimming Modes

“…Phamduy et al designed a miniature robotic fish prototype to investigate animal-robot interaction studies. They used 3D-printing technology to manufacture the robot prototype [26]. Afolayan et al proposed a fish-like underwater robot with a body in a thin plastic film manufactured by using a vacuum packaging machine.…”

Twisted and coiled polymer (TCP) muscles embedded in silicone elastomer for use in soft robot

“…A lamprey-based undulatory vehicle (Wilbur et al 2002), a free-swimming robotic batoid ray based on IPMC actuators (Chen et al 2011), and a miniature fish-like robotic swimmer induced by propulsion generated by tail vibrations (Aureli et al 2010) were presented. More recently, a swimming robotic fish was demonstrated that was developed with electromagnetic actuation system and 3D printing (Phamduy et al 2017).…”