This article reviews different research and development work on robotic fishes. The Collective Dynamics and Control Laboratory at the University of Maryland has constructed two robotic fish to study bio-inspired flow sensing and control of underwater vehicles. Bio-inspired flow sensing and flow-relative control using distributed sensor measurements have been described and demonstrated with two underwater robots. Prototypes of the robotic fish have been designed for experiments to include a rigid airfoil-shaped robot and a flexible, self-propelled robot. The closed-loop control of the flexible robot comprised feedforward and feedback controls. The feedforward term accelerates the convergence of the tracking control, and the feedback term improves the tracking performance by reducing the steady-state error. Rheotaxis and speed-control experiments have demonstrated the effectiveness of the flow sensing and control algorithms. In ongoing work, teams are investigating a novel actuation approach using an internal reaction wheel for flexible fish propulsion.
Robotic Fish
Feitian Zhang is a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Institute for Systems Research at the University of Maryland. He received the Ph.D. degree from Michigan State University in 2014. Interests include bio-inspired robotics, underwater vehicles, dynamics and control, and mechatronics.
Francis D. Lagor is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Institute for Systems Research at the University of Maryland. Interests center around estimation, navigation and control of robotic systems in complex flow environments.
Hong Lei received the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from Michigan State University in 2015, where he is currently a research associate. Research focuses on modeling of sensing properties and sensor application for IPMC materials.
Xiaobo Tan is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Michigan State University. He received the B.S and M.S. degrees from Tsinghua University, China, in 1995, 1998, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Maryland in 2002. Interests include modeling and control of systems with hysteresis, electroactive polymer sensors and actuators, and bio-inspired underwater robots.
Derek A. Paley is the Willis H. Young Jr. Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering Education in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and the Institute for Systems Research at the University of Maryland. He received his B.S. degree from Yale in 1997 and his Ph.D. degree from Princeton in 2007. Interests include cooperative control, adaptive sampling, and biological modeling.
Zhang, F., Lagor, F. D., Lei, H., Tan, X., and Paley, D. A. (March 1, 2016). "Robotic Fish." ASME. Mechanical Engineering. March 2016; 138(03): S2–S5. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.2016-Mar-6
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