Design and Performance of a Cownose Ray-Inspired Robot for Underwater Exploration
Pages 244 - 265
Abstract
This paper describes the design and experiments of a bioinspired robot imitating the swimming behavior of cownose rays. These creatures propel themselves by moving their flat and large pectoral fins, which generate a wave that pushes back the surrounding water, generating thrust through momentum conservation. The robot mimicking this motion features a stiff central body, which houses motors, batteries, and electronics and is equipped with flexible pectoral fins crafted from silicone rubber. Each fin is driven by a servomotor that propels a link inside the leading edge, allowing the wave motion to be recreated through the flexibility of the fins. To enhance maneuverability, two small, rigid caudal fins have also been added. The robot was designed, constructed, and tested, and the results indicated that the locomotion principle was effective, as the robot was capable of forward propulsion, left and right turns, and floating and diving maneuvers.
References
[1]
Arastehfar, S., Chew, C.: Effects of root chord movement on thrust generation of oscillatory pectoral fins. Bioinspir. Biomimet. 16, 036009 (2021)
[2]
Bianchi, G., Cinquemani, S., Schito, P., Resta, F.: A numerical model for the analysis of the locomotion of a cownose ray. J. Fluids Eng. 144(031203) (2022)
[3]
British Standard 903: Methods of testing vulcanised rubber - Part 19 (1957)
[4]
Cai Y, Bi S, Li G, Hildre H, and Zhang H From natural complexity to biomimetic simplification. The realization of bionic fish inspired by the cownose ray IEEE Robot. Autom. Mag. 2018 26 27-38
[5]
Cai, Y., Bi, S., Zhang, L.: Design and implication of a bionic pectoral fin imitating cow-nosed ray. In: 2010 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 3525–3529 (2010)
[6]
Cai Y, Bi S, and Zheng L Design and experiments of a robotic fish imitating cow-nosed ray J. Bionic Eng. 2010 7 120-126
[7]
Cai Y, Bi S, and Zheng L Design optimization of a bionic fish with multi-joint fin rays Adv. Robot. 2012 26 177-196
[8]
Carlton, J.: Propeller Blade Vibration in Marine Propeller and Propulsion. Butterworth-Heinemann (2012)
[9]
Chen L, Bi S, Cai Y, Cao Y, and Pan G Design and experimental research on a bionic robot fish with tri-dimensional soft pectoral fins inspired by cownose ray J. Marine Sci. Eng. 2022 10 537
[10]
Chen, Z., Um, T., Zhu, J., Bart-Smith, H.: Bio-inspired robotic cownose ray propelled by electroactive polymer pectoral fin. In: ASME 2011 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition, pp. 1–8 (2011)
[11]
Chew, C., Lim, Q., Yeo, K.S.: Development of propulsion mechanism for robot manta ray. In: 2015 IEEE Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, pp. 1918–1923 (2015)
[12]
Chi W and Low K Review and fin structure design for robotic manta ray (roman IV) J. Robot. Mechatron. 2012 24 4 621-628
[13]
Evologics: Boss Project. Manta ray AUV. Techincal report (2017). https://evologics.de/projects/boss
[14]
Fish, F., Schreiber, C., Moored, K., Liu, G., Dong, H., Bart-Smith, H.: Hydrodynamic performance of aquatic flapping: efficiency of underwater flight in the manta (2016)
[15]
Gao, J., Bi, S., Xu, Y., Liu, C.: Development and design of a robotic manta ray featuring flexible pectoral fins. In: 2007 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, pp. 519–523 (2007)
[16]
Hall K, Hundt PJ, Swenson J, Summers A, and Crow K The evolution of underwater flight: the redistribution of pectoral fin rays in manta rays and their relatives (myliobatidae) J. Morphol. 2018 279 1155-1170
[17]
Hao Y, Cao Y, Cao Y, Huang Q, and Pan G Course control of a manta robot based on amplitude and phase differences J. Marine Sci. Eng. 2022 10 2 285
[18]
He, J., Cao, Y., Huang, Q., Cao, Y., Tu, C., Pan, G.: A new type of bionic manta ray robot. In: Global Oceans 2020: Singapore, U.S. Gulf Coast (2020)
[19]
He J, Cao Y, Huang Q, Pan G, Dong X, and Cao Y Effects of bionic pectoral fin rays’ spanwise flexibility on forwarding propulsion performance J. Marine Sci. Eng. 2022 10 783
[20]
Katzschmann, R., Preto, J.D., Curdy, R.M., Rus, D.: Exploration of underwater life with an acoustically controlled soft robotic fish. Sci. Robot. 3(16), eaar3449 (2018)
[21]
Li, T., et al.: Fast-moving soft electronic fish. Sci. Adv. 3, e1602045 (2017)
[22]
Liu G, Ren Y, Zhu J, Bart-Smith H, and Dong H Thrust producing mechanisms in ray-inspired underwater vehicle propulsion Theor. Appl. Mech. Lett. 2015 5 54-57
[23]
Low, K., Zhou, C., Seet, G.: Improvement and testing of a robotic manta ray (roman-III). In: The 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, pp. 1730–1735 (2011)
[24]
Ma H, Cai Y, Wang Y, Bi S, and Gong Z A biomimetic cownose ray robot fish with oscillating and chordwise twisting flexible pectoral fins Industr. Rob.: Int. J. 2015 42 3 214-221
[25]
Meng Y, Wu Z, Donng H, Wang J, and Yu J Toward a novel robotic manta with unique pectoral fins IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern.: Syst. 2020 1 1-11
[26]
Noor, S.N.A.M., Mahmud, J.: Modelling and computation of silicone rubber deformation constitutive equation. In: 2015 5th International Conference on Communication Systems and Network Technologies, pp. 1323–1326 (2015)
[27]
Riggs P, Bowyer A, and Vincent J Advantages of a biomimetic stiffness profile in pitching flexible fin propulsion J. Bionic Eng. 2010 7 2 113-119
[28]
Roetemberg D, Luinge H, Baten C, and Veltink P Compensation of magnetic disturbance improves inertial and magnetic sensing of human body segment orientation IEEE Trans. Neural Syst. Rehabil. Eng. 2005 13 3 395-405
[29]
Rosemberger L Pectoral fin locomotion in batoid fishes: undulation versus oscillation J. Exp. Biol. 2001 204 379-394
[30]
Russo, R., Blemker, S., Fish, F., Bart-Smith, H.: Biomechanical model of batoid (skates and rays) pectoral fins predicts the influence of skeletal structure on fin kinematics: implications for bio-inspired design. Bioinspir. Biomimet. 10, 046002 (2015)
[31]
Salazar R, Fuentes V, and Abdelkefi A Classification of biological and bioinspired aquatic systems: a review Ocean Eng. 2018 148 75-114
[32]
Sfakiotakis M, Lane D, and Davies J Review of fish swimming modes for aquatic locomotion IEEE J. Oceanic Eng. 1999 24 2 237-252
[33]
Sun, Y., Wu, L., Wang, H., Althoefer, K., Qi, P.: The validation of viscosity induced chord-wise undulation on soft fin array towards a novel robotic manta ray. In: 2022 IEEE 5th International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft), pp. 673–680 (2022)
[34]
Xing C, Cao Y, Cao Y, Pan G, and Huang Q Asymmetrical oscillating morphology hydrodynamic performance of a novel bionic pectoral fin J. Marine Sci. Eng. 2022 10 289
[35]
Zhang D, Pan G, Cao Y, Huang Q, and Cao Y A novel integrated gliding and flapping propulsion biomimetic manta-ray robot J. Marine Sci. Eng. 2022 10 924
[36]
Zhang, Y., Wang, S., Wang, X., Geng, Y.: Design and control of bionic manta ray robot with flexible pectoral fin. In: IEEE 14th International Conference on Control and Automation (ICCA), pp. 1034–1039 (2018)
Index Terms
- Design and Performance of a Cownose Ray-Inspired Robot for Underwater Exploration
Index terms have been assigned to the content through auto-classification.
Recommendations
Hybrid Baseline Localization for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles
This paper presents a hybrid baseline (HBL) navigation method for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). In this approach, a floating acoustic transponder is used to augment moving short baseline (MSBL) navigation, in which two transponders are mounted ...
Marine Observation Network based on Underwater Vehicles
WUWNet '14: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Underwater Networks & SystemsRecently, ocean observation is developing from using a single underwater sensor node to employing underwater sensor networks consisting of multiple sensor platforms. Underwater vehicles including underwater gilders and autonomous underwater vehicles (...
Design and control of a ray-mimicking soft robot based on morphological features for adaptive deformation
Underwater tasks are diversified and articulated. The environment in which they must be accomplished is often unconstrained and unpredictable. Operating AUVs assuring safety of the robot and of its surrounding is therefore very difficult. On the other ...
Comments
Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.Information & Contributors
Information
Published In
Jul 2023
476 pages
ISBN:978-3-031-38856-9
DOI:10.1007/978-3-031-38857-6
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.
Publisher
Springer-Verlag
Berlin, Heidelberg
Publication History
Published: 01 August 2023
Author Tags
Qualifiers
- Article
Contributors
Other Metrics
Bibliometrics & Citations
Bibliometrics
Article Metrics
- 0Total Citations
- 0Total Downloads
- Downloads (Last 12 months)0
- Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 05 Mar 2025