Swimming robot emulating fish propulsion

The recent development of new technologies in the fields of control, propulsion and communication has enabled the fish-like propulsion mechanism which is generated through the oscillatory movement of the fish's tail. The successful development of a biomimetic robotic platform requires a careful study of the hydroelastic model, based on which an appropriate control system must be designed to make this type of propulsion system efficient. For this reason, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the influence of hydroelastic effects on the propulsive behavior of the fish's fin. An analytical hydroelastic model is developed to evaluate the fish-like propulsion mechanism when its tail is oscillating in a constant flow field. The flexible fin is modelled as a Euler-Bernoulli beam and the hydrodynamic loads are computed from the linear potential theory imposing also the Kutta condition to include the release of vortex wake. The proposed hydroelastic propulsive model is compared with those obtained by experiments and numerical analysis.