Development of Experimental Fish Robot

Underwater robots are widely used in the fields of ocean development, ocean investigation and marine environmental protection. They need higher efficient of propulsive performance. In order to get an underwater robot with high propulsion efficiency, we have studied on a fishlike swimming mechanism and developed a prototype fish robot. It has about 600 mm body length, and three joints of a tail moved by two servomotors with an original link mechanism. It can simulate various moving patterns optionally. In this paper, experimental results of swimming speed measurements using two types of a tail fin are reported. Also, research areas needed for getting higher performance fish robots are discussed.