Abstract
Biology is a source of inspiration for many functional aspects of engineered systems. Fish can provide guidance for the design of animal-like robots, which have soft elastic bodies that are a continuum of actuator, sensor, and information processor. Fish respond to minute pressure changes in water, generating thrust and gaining lift from obstacles in the current, altering the shape of body and fins and using sensory nerves in their muscles to control them. Dielectric Elastomer (DE) artificial muscles offer a mechanism for a fish muscle actuator. DE devices have already been shown to outperform natural muscle in terms of active stress, strain, and speed[1-3]. DE’s also have multi-functional capabilities that include actuation, sensing, logic and even energy harvesting, all achievable through appropriate control of charge[4, 5]. But DE actuators must be designed so that they provide enough torque to drive the tail and develop useful forward thrust.
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Anderson, I.A., Kelch, M., Sun, S., Jowers, C., Xu, D., Murray, M.M. (2013). Artificial Muscle Actuators for a Robotic Fish. In: Lepora, N.F., Mura, A., Krapp, H.G., Verschure, P.F.M.J., Prescott, T.J. (eds) Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems. Living Machines 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8064. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39802-5_31
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39802-5_31
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