Eel-Like Robotic Fish to Scan Inaccessible Ocean Areas

Inspired by Anguilliform fishes due to their superior flexibility compared with other fish species, a team of scientists in Singapore developed and built a prototype of an eel-like robotic fish.

Such a robotic fish would allow marine forces to reach areas which are otherwise difficult or even impossible for divers to reach.

The eel-like robotic fish is small, sophisticated and intelligent enough to operate autonomously underwater.

"We performed simulations and experiments on the robotic fish, equipped with a motion library to cope with different scenarios, and the results validate the effectiveness of the proposed controllers as it was able to swim forward and backward as predicted," said Jianxin Xu from the National University of Singapore and co-author of the project.

A new form of central pattern generator model was presented, with the help of which the swimming pattern of a real Anguilliform fish was successfully replicated in the robotic prototype.

A snake-like form also gives the Anguilliform robot amphibious potential, due to the similarity in undulatory locomotion in water and on solid ground.

The robotic fish is designed to move forward and backward, as well as turnaround through different reference inputs.

The device is driven by 3D oscillators, an artificial neural network and an outer amplitude modulator.

The study appeared in the journal World Scientific.