Mechanical design of biomimetic fish robot using LIPCA as artificial muscle

This paper presents a mechanical design of biomimetic fish robot using the Lightweight Piezo-Composite Actuator (LIPCA). We have designed a mechanism for converting actuation of the LIPCA into caudal fin movement. The linkage mechanism consists of rack-pinion and four-bar linkage systems. Two kinds of caudal fins are fabricated Such that the shapes resemble subcarangiform and ostraciiform caudal fin shape, respectively, and then attached to the linkage system. The swimming test using 300 V, input with 1 Hz to 3 Hz frequency was conducted to investigate the effect of tail beat frequency and shape of caudal fin on the swimming speed. The maximum swimming speed was reached when the device was operated at its natural swimming frequency. At the natural swimming frequency of 1.016 Hz, maximum swimming speeds were 1.267 cm/s and 1.041 cm/s for ostraciiforrn and subcarangiform caudal fin, respectively. The Strouhal numbers, which are a measure of thrust efficiency, were also calculated in order to examine thrust performance of the present biomimetic fish robot.