Computational Research on Modular Undulating Fin for Biorobotic Underwater Propulsor

Biomimetic design employs the principles of nature to solve engineering problems. Such designs which are hoped to be quick, efficient, robust, and versatile, have taken advantage of optimization via natural selection. In the present research, an environment-friendly propulsion system mimicking undulating fins of stingray was built. A non-conventional method was considered to model the flexibility of the fins of stingray. A two-degree-of-freedom mechanism comprised of several linkages was designed and constructed to mimic the actual flexible fin, The driving linkages were used to form a mechanical fin consisting of several fin segments, which are able tO produce undulations, similar to those produced by the actual fins. Owing to the modularity of the design of the mechanical fin, various undulating patterns can be realized. Some qualitative observations, obtained by experiments, predicted that the thrusts produced by the mechanical fin are different among various undulating patterns. To fully understand this experimental phenomenon is very important for better performance and energy saving for our biorobotic underwater propulsion system. Here, four basic undulating patterns of the mechanical fin were performed using two-dimensional unsteady computational fluid dynamics （CFD） method. An unstructured, grid-based, unsteady Navier-Stokes solver with automatic adaptive re-meshing was used to compute the unsteady flow around the fin through twenty complete cycles. The pressure distribution on fin surface was computed and integrated to provide fin forces which were decomposed into rift and thrust. The pressure force and friction force were also computed throughout the swimming cycle. Finally, vortex contour maps of these four basic fin undulating patterns were displayed and compared.

Computational Study on a Squid-Like Underwater Robot with Two Undulating Side Fins

The undulating fin propulsion system is an instance of the bio-inspired propulsion systems. In the current study, the swimming motion of a squid-like robot with two undulating side fins, mimicking those of a Stingray or a Cuttlefish, was investigated through flow computation around the body. We used the finite analytic method for space discretization and Euler implicit scheme for time discretization along with the PISO algorithm for velocity pressure coupling. A body-fitted moving grid was generated using the Poisson equation at each time step. Based on the computed results, we discussed the features of the flow field and hydrodynamic forces acting on the body and fin. A simple relationship among the fin＇s principal dimensions was established. Numerical computation was done for various aspect ratios, fin angles and frequencies in order to validate the proposed relationship among principal dimensions. Subsequently, the relationship was examined base on the distribution of pressure difference between upper and lower surfaces and the distribution of the thrust force. In efficiency calculations, the undulating fins showed promising results. Finally, for the fin, the open characteristics from computed data showed satisfactory conformity with the experimental results.

Locomotion and Depth Control of Robotic Fish with Modular Undulating Fins

This paper presents an environmental-friendly robotic system mimicking the undulating fins of a fish.To mimic the actual flexible fin of real fish,a fin-like mechanism with a series of connecting linkages is modeled and attached to the robotic fish,by virtue of a specially designed strip.Each link is able to turn and slide with respect to the adjacent link.These driving linkages are then used to form a mechanical fin consisting of several fin segments,which are able to produce undulations,similar to those produced by the actual fish fins.Owing to the modular and re-configurable design of the mechanical fin,we are able to construct biomimetic robotic fish with various swimming modes by fin undulations.Some qualitative and workspace observations by experiments of the robotic fish are shown and discussed.

Design and Mechanics of a Composite Wave-driven Soft Robotic Fin for Biomimetic Amphibious Robot

Bionic amphibious robots have important prospects in scientific, commercial, and military fields. Compared with traditional amphibious robots which use propellers/jets for aquatic medium and wheels/tracks for terrestrial medium, bionic propulsion method has great advantages in terms of manoeuvrability, efficiency, and reliability, because there is no need to switch between different propulsion systems. To explore the integrated driving technology of amphibious robot, a novel bio-inspired soft robotic fin for amphibious use is proposed in this paper. The bionic fin can swim underwater and walk on land by the same undulating motion. To balance the conflicting demands of flexibility underwater and rigidity on land, the undulating fin adopts a special combination of a membrane fin and a bending spring. A periodic longitudinal wave in horizontal direction has been found generating passively in dynamic analysis. To find the composite wave-driven mechanics, theoretical analysis is conducted based on the walking model and swimming model. A virtual prototype is built in ADAMS software to verify the walking mechanics. The simulation result reveals that the passive longitudinal wave is also periodical and the composite wave contributes to land walking. Finally, an amphibious robot prototype actuated by a pair of undulating fins has been developed. The experiments show that the robot can achieve multiple locomotion, including walking forward/backward, turning in place, swimming underwater, and crossing medium, thus giving evidence to the feasibility of the newly designed undulating fin for amphibious robot.

Computational and experimental study on dynamic behavior of underwater robots propelled by bionic undulating fins

Bionic undulating fins, inspired by undulations of the median and/or paired fin (MPF) fish, have a bright prospective for un-derwater missions with higher maneuverability, lower noisy, and higher efficiency. In the present study, a coupled computa-tional fluid dynamics (CFD) model was proposed and implemented to facilitate numerical simulations on hydrodynamic ef-fects of the bionic undulating robots. Hydrodynamic behaviors of underwater robots propelled by two bionic undulating fins were computationally and experimentally studied within the three typical desired movement patterns, i.e., marching, yawing and yawing-while-marching. Moreover, several specific phenomena in the bionic undulation mode were unveiled and dis-cussed by comparison between the CFD and experimental results under the same kinematics parameter sets. The contributed work on the dynamic behavior of the undulating robots is of importance for study on the propulsion mechanism and control algorithms.

Investigations on vortex structures for undulating fin propulsion using phase-locked digital particle image velocimetry

The Gymnarchus niloticus fish can swim in surging and heaving directions only with a long undulating ribbon fin while keeping its body along almost straight line.These features substantially inspire the design of underwater vessels with high maneuverability and station keeping performance,which is characterized by peculiar vortex structures induced by undulating fin propulsion.To reveal the propulsion mechanism under the evolution of these complex vortex structures,the variation of velocity field with the undulating fin’s wave phase on cross section and mid-sagittal plane at wave amplitude of 85°is investigated by phase-locked digital particle image velocimetry(DPIV).Through experimental flow field images,two typical vortex structures are clearly identified,i.e.,streamwise vortex and crescent vortex,which is further explained by supplemental numerical simulations using large eddy simulation.Vortex characteristic and its evolution on cross sections and mid-sagittal planes is investigated,and its relationship with thrust,heave force is also analyzed.It is found that the two kinds of vortexes induce the main hydrodynamic forces in two directions synchronously,which brings the undulating fin propulsion an extra-ordinal maneuverability.The research will be useful for understanding the potential mechanism of this novel propulsion and is of great application prospect in designing more maneuverable underwater vehicles.

Braking Performance of a Biomimetic Squid-Like Underwater Robot

In this study, the braking performance of the undulating fin propulsion system ofa biomimetic squid-like underwater robot was investigated through free run experiment and simulation of the quasi-steady mathematical model. The quasi-steady equa- tions of motion were solved using the measured and calculated hydrodynamic forces and compared with free-run test results. Various braking strategies were tested and discussed in terms of stopping ability and the forces acting on the stopping stage. The stopping performance of the undulating fin propulsion system turned out to be excellent considering the short stopping time and short stopping distance. This is because of the large negative thrust produced by progressive wave in opposite direction. It was confirmed that the undulating fin propulsion system can effectively perform braking even in complex underwater explorations.

NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF BATOID LOCOMOTION

The hydrodynamics of batoid swimming motions is investigated using the three-dimensional simulation of a self-propelled body in still water. The kinematics of batoid swimming is characterized by large amplitude undulations of the pectoral fins while the middle part of the body remains straight. The majority of the thrust is generated by pectoral fins. Linear and quadratic amplitude variations are used for the pectoral fins in analyzing the locomotion of the batoid. Navier-Stokes equations are used to solve the unsteady fluid flow. A user defined function and a dynamic mesh method are applied to track the batoid locomotion. The mean swimming velocities of 1.6 BL/s and 1.3 BL/s are achieved, respectively, with thrust coefficients of 0.13 in and 0.095 in the dynamical simulation, where BL/s is the body length per second. The maximum propulsive efficiency 19% is achieved when the frequency of the undulation is 2.2 Hz in both amplitude variations.