Fig 1. Fish robot prototype

[Movie Clip]

In the current, the phenomenon of fluid flow for fish and aquatic animals swimming is unknown. Fish and aquatic mammal propel themselves differently from human. Understanding their propulsion systems could provide us a new technology.

This research, Institute of Field Robot (FIBO) use the yellow-fin prototype tuna to build the robot because of its movement ability in high speed for a long time, thunniform mode, which make us believe that its movement will be the most efficient locomotion mode than other aquatic mammals. Additional, the body profile is both symmetrical in horizontal and vertical plane, which is helpful for finding out the equation of motion.

The objective is to study the relative of movement and energy in the swimming mode, including mechanism of fluid flow around the fish body. Expect that the new aquatic vehicle propulsion will be developed by mean of this study to be more practical. Moreover, this yellow-fin tuna robot is also used for experimental equipment.

For this study, it would be divided to 4 parts:

1. Design and construction
2. Measurement installation
3. Mathematical modeling and control system design
4. Experimentation and conclusion.

Fig 2. Swimming mode BCF propulsion. Sheded area contribute to thrust generation.

Fig 3. Oscillaing Wing Layout

Fig 4. The wake of a swimming fish has revers rotational direction, associated with thrust generation.

This research is now commenced for studying about the physiology to design mechanism for construction a fish robot and subsystem installation in the future.

Fig 5. New fish robot prototype.