Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A Novel Undulatory Propulsion Strategy for Underwater Robots

  • Published:
Journal of Bionic Engineering Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Stingrays can undulate their wide pectoral fins to thrust themselves and swim freely underwater. Many researchers have used bionics to directly imitate their undulating mechanism and manufacture undulatory underwater robots. Based on the limitations of the existing undulatory underwater robots, this paper proposes a novel undulatory propulsion strategy, which aims to use the stingray undulating mechanism more thoroughly. First, the mathematical models of both traditional and novel structures are established to accurately describe their undulating mechanism. Then, based on the dynamic mesh technology, the flow field vortex structure they generated is analyzed through fluid-structure interaction simulation, and the thrust force and lateral force generated by them are calculated, which verified that this novel propulsion strategy is indeed more effective. Finally, a prototype robot based on the improved propulsion strategy is manufactured. Compared with the existing stingray robots, the prototype has obvious advantages, thus verifying the accuracy of the simulation results.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Young Y L. Fluid-structure interaction analysis of flexible composite marine propellers. Journal of Fluids and Structures, 2008, 24, 799–818.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Tran M, Binns J, Chai S, Forrest A, Nguyen H. Experimental study of the collective and cyclic pitch propeller for an underwater vehicle. Journal of Marine Science and Application, 2018, 17, 592–602.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Cai Y, Bi S, Ma H. Research on robotic fish propelled by oscillating pectoral fins. Robot Fish: Bio-Inspired Fishlike Underwater Robots, Springer, 2015, 119–160.

  4. Wen L, Ren Z, Di S V, Hu K, Yuan T, Wang T, Lauder G V. Understanding fish linear acceleration using an undulatory biorobotic model with soft fluidic elastomer actuated morphing median fins. Soft Robotics, 2018, 5, 375–388.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Sun W, Liu Z, Ren Z, Wang G, Yuan T, Wen L. Linear acceleration of an undulatory robotic fish with dynamic morphing median fin under the instantaneous self-propelled condition. Journal of Bionic Engineering, 2020, 17, 241–253.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Cui Z, Gu X, Li K, Jiang H. CFD studies of the effects of waveform on swimming performance of carangiform fish. Applied Sciences, 2017, 7, 149.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Bottom II R G, Borazjani I, Blevins E L, Lauder G V. Hydrodynamics of swimming in stingrays: Numerical simulations and the role of the leading-edge vortex. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 2016, 788, 407–443.

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  8. Liu G, Ren Y, Zhu J, Smith H B, Dong H. Thrust producing mechanisms in ray-inspired underwater vehicle propulsion. Theoretical and Applied Mechanics Letters, 2015, 5, 54–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Schaefer J T, Summers A P. Batoid wing skeletal structure: Novel morphologies, mechanical implications, and phylogenetic patterns. Journal of Morphology, 2005, 264, 298–313.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Wang Y, Tan J, Zhao D. Design and experiment on a bio-mimetic robotic fish inspired by freshwater stingray. Journal of Bionic Engineering, 2015, 12, 204–216.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Duraisamy P, Sidharthan R K, Santhanakrishnan M N. Design, modeling, and control of biomimetic fish robot: A review. Journal of Bionic Engineering, 2019, 16, 967–993.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Borazjani I, Daghooghi M. The fish tail motion forms an attached leading edge vortex. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2013, 280, 2071.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Matta A, Pendar H, Battaglia F, Bayandor J. Impact of caudal fin shape on thrust production of a thunniform swimmer. Journal of Bionic Engineering, 2020, 17, 254–269.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Smits A J. Undulatory and oscillatory swimming. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 2019, 874, 1–17.

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  15. Rosenberger L J, Westneat M W. Functional morphology of undulatory pectoral fin locomotion in the stingray taeniura lymma (chondrichthyes: Dasyatidae). Journal of Experimental Biology, 1999, 202, 3523–3539.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Wang Y, Wang R, Wang S, Tan M, Yu J. Underwater bioinspired propulsion: From inspection to manipulation. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 2020, 67, 7629–7638.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Appiah C, Arndt C, Siemsen K, Heitmann A, Staubitz A, Selhuber U C. Living materials herald a new era in soft robotics. Advanced Materials, 2019, 31, 1807747.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Wang R, Wang S, Wang Y, Tang C. Path following for a biomimetic underwater vehicle based on ADRC. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Singapore, Singapore, 2017, 3519–3524.

  19. Sfakiotakis M, Fasoulas J, Gliva R. Dynamic modeling and experimental analysis of a two-ray undulatory fin robot. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Hamburg, Germany, 2015, 339–346.

  20. Sfakiotakis M, Gliva R, Mountoufaris M. Steering-plane motion control for an underwater robot with a pair of undulatory fin propulsors. 24th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation (MED), Rome, Italy, 2016, 496–503.

  21. Wang S, Wang Y, Wei Q, Tan M, Yu J. A bio-inspired robot with undulatory fins and its control methods. IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, 2017, 22, 206–216.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Liu H, Curet O. Swimming performance of a bio-inspired robotic vessel with undulating fin propulsion. Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, 2018, 13, 056006.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Zhou H, Hu T, Xie H, Zhang D, Shen L. Computational and experimental study on dynamic behavior of underwater robots propelled by bionic undulating fins. Science China Technological Sciences, 2010, 53, 2966–2971.

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  24. Ikeda M, Hikasa S, Watanabe K, Nagai I. A pectoral fin analysis for diving rajiform-type fish robots by fluid dynamics. Artificial Life and Robotics, 2014, 19, 136–141.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Zhang Y, He J, Low K H. Parametric study of an underwater finned propulsor inspired by bluespotted ray. Journal of Bionic Engineering, 2012, 9, 166–176.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Neely L, Gaiennie J, Noble N, Erickson J C. Stingray-inspired robot with simply actuated intermediate motion. Bioinspiration, Biomimetics, and Bioreplication, 2016, 9797, 97970U.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Nowell J, Connor J, Joordens M, Champion B. Analysis of the effect waveform parameters have on stingray surface velocity. 13th Annual Conference on System of Systems Engineering (SoSE), Paris, France, 2018, 144–149.

  28. Boswell R J. Design, Cavitation Performance, and Open-water Performance of a Series of Research Skewed Propellers, technical report, David W Taylor Naval Ship Research and Development Center, Bethesda, MD, USA, 1971.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  29. Hirt C W, Amsden A A, Cook J L. An arbitrary lagrangian-eulerian computing method for all flow speeds. Journal of Computational Physics, 1974, 14, 227–253.

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  30. Zhang J, Bai Y, Zhai S, Gao D. Numerical study on vortex structure of undulating fins in stationary water. Ocean Engineering, 2019, 187, 106166.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Fu W S, Lai Y C, Li C G. Estimation of turbulent natural convection in horizontal parallel plates by the q criterion. International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer, 2013, 45, 41–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers for their detailed comments which helped to improve the quality of this paper. This work is supported by the National Science Foundation of China (No. 91748123) and the Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province (Grant No. 2019JM-145). The authors thank Haiyan Cheng and Tao Wang for insightful discussions, and Yingjie Li and Chengpeng Ma for their assistance with the development of the simulation software testing.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Education Ministry for Modern Design and Rotor-Bearing System, School of Mechanical Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, China

    Qiuyang Li, Jinhua Zhang, Jun Hong, Debin Hu, Yuhan Yang & Songzi Guo

Authors
  1. Qiuyang Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jinhua Zhang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Jun Hong
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Debin Hu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Yuhan Yang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Songzi Guo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jinhua Zhang.

Electronic Supplementary Materials

Supplementary material, approximately 7.38 MB.

Supplementary material, approximately 12.8 MB.

Supplementary material, approximately 6.78 MB.

Supplementary material, approximately 4.78 MB.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Li, Q., Zhang, J., Hong, J. et al. A Novel Undulatory Propulsion Strategy for Underwater Robots. J Bionic Eng 18, 812–823 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42235-021-0057-4

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42235-021-0057-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation