Robot Fish with Novel Wire-Driven Continuum Flapping Propulsor

This paper presents a robot fish with a novel continuum flapping propulsor. It is actuated by the biomimetic wire-driven mechanism. The fish tail is made from a continuous elastic plate. One pair of wire is used to control the tail flapping. Compared with the traditional multi-joint design, in this design the flapping motion could better fit the fish swimming curve, as a result improving the propulsion efficiency. Results show that the propulsion efficiency of the robot could reach 64.4%.