Fabrication of tubular IPMC sensor for two-dimensional flow sensing

The biomimetic lateral line system inspired by the fish lateral line flow sensing principle offers a novel approach to underwater robot perception models. Among these, the design of sensor devices is one of the fundamental issues in the current research and development of artificial lateral lines. At present, most of the sensor units that make up the artificial lateral line have only one-dimensional sensing capability. Direction information is typically obtained using arrays. Lateral line sensors with two-dimensional flow field sensing capabilities can directly provide directional information and possess stronger spatial sensing ability. However, achieving such sensors poses critical challenges in terms of processing technology and cost, so two-dimensional lateral line sensors are relatively rare and not highly practical. This paper designs a two-dimensional flow field sensor based on tubular IPMC, which improves the stability and sensitivity of the sensor through capsule encapsulation and biomimetic design. It enables a single sensor to directly sense the two-dimensional vector flow field isotropically, which helps enhance the perception ability of the artificial lateral line system in three-dimensional space.