SpineWave: Harnessing Fish Spinal Kinematics in Biomimetic Robotics for Enhanced Aquatic Exploration

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Abstract Fish have endured millions of years of evolution, and their distinct rigid-flexible body structures have offered limitless inspiration for developing biomimetic robots. The current paper introduces a fish spine-like rigid-flexible transition structure and thus leads to scalable prototypes of biomimetic robotic fish. Inspired by fish anatomy, the structure incorporates expandable fishbone-like ribs with adjustable magnets to emulate the stretch and recoil of fish muscles, thus balancing the easy implementation of rigid actuators with enhanced flexibility. Notably, such a structure is capable of full-body modular packaging, allowing for rapid expansion and adaptation to different fish shapes and swimming modes. To optimize the hydrodynamics of the robot, we employed an evolutionary algorithm, resulting in a significant enhancement in free swimming performance. At last, we demonstrate the robustness of the constructed biomimetic robotic fish in a natural water environment, showing its real-world monitoring capabilities.