Development of a Rajiform Swimming Robot using Ionic Polymer Artificial Muscles

Abstract

Ionic polymer-metal composite (IPMC), which is one of the electro-active polymer actuators, is expected as artificial muscles for robots. An interesting property of IPMC is that it requires water to work, therefore it is suitable for underwater robots. In this paper, we developed an underwater robot which mimics rajiform swimming, that is the swimming form of a ray fish. Fins are designed using sixteen IPMCs. For autonomous operation, miniaturization of the electrical devices such as a micro controllers and small amplifiers are performed. A simple traveling wave control input is employed to generate moment on the fin. In the experiment, propulsion speed is measured under various control parameters. Furthermore, incremental wave of the fin is observed although the amplitude of the control input is spatially uniform. We also discuss this phenomenon from the point of view of interaction between elasticity of the actuator and fluid dynamics.

Design and control of a ray-mimicking soft robot based on morphological features for adaptive deformation

“…Recently, many bio-inspired underwater robots with ray-inspired mechanism have been developed. However, previous works differed from real rays in terms of configuration of the actuation mechanism: the skeleton was set in parallel, or actuator and locomotion patterns were limited and not redundant [7,8,11].…”

Ionic electroactive polymer metal composites: Fabricating, modeling, and applications of postsilicon smart devices

“…A robotic structure moving as a ray fish was described in Ref. 189 where all the solutions adopted for minimization of the electronics are discussed and a preliminary simple control strategy was adopted to validate the motion capabilities.…”

Development and Motion Testing of a Robotic Ray

“…Figure 1 illustrates some relevant robotic fishes developed and tested [1,. The biomimetic undulating fin mechanisms were developed by using various actuators, such as motor , parallel bellows actuator (PBA) [1], IPMC [31][32][33][34], and SMA [35,36].…”