Quantitative Thrust Efficiency of a Self-Propulsive Robotic Fish: Experimental Method and Hydrodynamic Investigation

Maneuverability modeling and trajectory tracking for fish robot

“…Carangiform and thunniform locomotion are body and/or caudal fin (BCF) modes of swimming. Fish use this behavior to generate high-speed swimming, high thrust and acceleration, and small-turning angles with low power consumption (Donley and Dickson, 2000;Wen, Wang, Wu & Liang, 2013). BCF swimming also generates low propulsion noise and a less conspicuous underwater cavitation.…”

Performance of Very Small Robotic Fish Equipped with CMOS Camera

“…Therefore, it was assumed that the drag force when the robot was held motionless in circulating water was equal to the propulsive force [10][11][12][13] that would be exerted by the robot when it was swimming at the same speed as the circulating water. Equation (2) gives the propulsive efficiency η, where the drag force is D (N), the velocity is u (m/s), and the power consumption is P (W).…”

A Stiffness-Adjusting Method to Improve Thrust Efficiency of a Two-Joint Robotic Fish

“…The thrust efficiency can reach 80-90% in live fish while that of the existing robotic fish is 40-50% [6,8]; there is much room for improvement of robotic fish. Thrust efficiency is determined by many factors such as the parameters of the body curve, the number of the joints, the frequency and the amplitude of undulatory, and the stiffness of the fish's body.…”

“…Nevertheless, recent biological findings indicate that the caudal fin undergoes complex kinematics independent of the body in lots of bony fish because of their stiffness. Both body undulation and caudal fin flapping play essential roles while a fish is swimming [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. How does the flexure stiffness affect the hydrodynamics of the fish swimming?…”