A new type of fish-like underwater microrobot

This paper presents a new prototype model of an underwater fish-like micro robot utilizing ionic conducting polymer film (ICPF) actuator as the servo actuator to realize swimming motion with three degrees of freedom. Biomimetic fish-like,micro robot,using ICPF actuator as a propulsion tail fin and a buoyancy adjuster for a. micro robot swimming structure in water or aqueous medium is developed. The overall size of the underwater micro robot prototype shaped as a fish is 45 mm, in length, 10 mm in width, and 4 mm in thickness. It has two tails with a fin driven respectively, a body posture adjuster, and a buoyancy adjuster. The moving, characteristic of the underwater micro robot is measured by changing the frequency of input voltage from 0.1-5 Hz in water and the amplitude input voltage from 0.5-10 V. The experimental results indicate that changing the amplitude and the frequency of input voltage can control the swimming speed of proposed underwater microrobot.