• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
• /
• v.7 no.4
• /
• pp.259-266
• /
• 2012

In these days, researches about underwater robots have been actively in progress for the purposes of ocean detection and resource exploration. Unlike general underwater robots such as ROV(Remotely Operated Vehicle) and AUV(Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) which have propellers, an articulated underwater robot which is called Crabster has been being developed in KORDI(Korea Ocean Research & Development Institute) with many cooperation organizations since 2010. The robot is expected to be able to walk and swim under the sea with its legs. Among many researching fields of this project, we are focusing on a swimming section. In order to find effective swimming locomotion for the robot, we approached this subject in terms of Biomimetics. As a model of optimized swimming organism in nature, diving beetles were chosen. In the paper, swimming motions of diving beetles were analyzed in viewpoint of robotics for applying them into the swimming motion of the robot. After modeling the kinematics of diving beetle through robotics engineering technique, we obtained swimming patterns of the one of living diving beetles, and then compared them with calculated optimal swimming patterns of a robot leg. As the first trial to compare the locomotion data of legs of the diving beetle with a robot leg, we have sorted two representative swimming patterns such as forwarding and turning. Experimental environment has been set up to get the motion data of diving beetles. The experimental equipment consists of a transparent aquarium and a high speed camera. Various swimming motions of diving beetles were recorded with the camera. After classifying swimming patterns of the diving beetle, we can get angular data of each joint on hind legs by image processing software, Image J. The data were applied to an optimized algorithm for swimming of a robot leg which was designed by robotics engineering technique. Through this procedure, simulated results which show trajectories of a robot leg were compared with trajectories of a leg of a diving beetle in desired directions. As a result, we confirmed considerable similarity in the result of trajectory and joint angles comparison.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
• /
• v.11 no.4
• /
• pp.285-292
• /
• 2016

For articulated swimming robots, there have been no researches about controlling the motion or trajectory following. A control method for articulated swimming robot is suggested by extending a previous algorithm, ESPG (Extended Swimming Pattern Generator). The control method focuses on the situation that continuous pre-determined swimming pattern is applied for long range travelling. In previous studies, there has not been a way to control the propulsive force when a swimming pattern created by ESPG was in progress. Hence, no control could be made unless the swimming pattern was completed even though an error occurred while the swimming pattern was in progress. In order to solve this problem, this study analyzes swimming patterns and suggests a method to control the propulsive force even while the swimming pattern was in progress. The angular velocity of each link is influenced and this eventually modifies the propulsive force. However, The angular velocity is changed, a number of problems can occur. In order to resolve this issue, phase compensation method and synchronization method were suggested. A simple controller was designed to confirm whether the suggested methods are able to control and a simulation has affirmed it. Moreover, it was applied to CALEB 10 (a biomimetic underwater articulated robot) and the result was verified.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.21 no.5
• /
• pp.103-110
• /
• 2020

Bio-inspired underwater robots have been studied to improve the dynamic performance of fins, such as swimming speed and efficiency, which is the most basic performance. Among them, bio-inspired soft robots with a compliant tail fin can have high degrees of freedom. On the other hand, to improve the driving efficiency of the compliant fins, the stiffness of the tail fin should be changed with the driving frequency. Therefore, a new type of variable stiffness mechanism has been developed and verified. This study, which was inspired by the anatomy of a real dolphin, assessed a process of designing and manufacturing a robotic dolphin with a variable stiffness mechanism. By mimicking the vertebrae of a dolphin, the variable stiffness driving part was manufactured using subtractive and additive manufacturing. A driving tendon was placed considering the location of the tendon in the actual dolphin, and the additional tendon was installed to change its stiffness. A robotic dolphin was designed and manufactured in a streamlined shape, and the swimming speed was measured by varying the stiffness. When the stiffness of the tail fin was varied at the same driving frequency, the swimming speed and thrust changed by approximately 1.24 and 1.5 times, respectively.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartA
• /
• v.16A no.4
• /
• pp.255-262
• /
• 2009

We present an autonomous entertainment dolphin robot system based on ubiquitous sensor networks(USN). Generally, It is impossible to apply to USN and GPS in underwater bio-mimetic robots. But An Entertainment dolphin robot which presented in this paper operates on the water not underwater. Navigation of the underwater robot in a given area is based on GPS data and the acquired position information from deployed USN motes with emphasis on user interaction. Body structures, sensors and actuators, governing microcontroller boards, and swimming and interaction features are described for a typical entertainment dolphin robot. Actions of mouth-opening, tail splash or water blow through a spout hole are typical responses of interaction when touch sensors on the body detect users' demand. Dolphin robots should turn towards people who demand to interact with them, while swimming autonomously. The functions that are relevant to human-robot interaction as well as robot movement such as path control, obstacle detection and avoidance are managed by microcontrollers on the robot for autonomy. Distance errors are calibrated periodically by the known position data of the deployed USN motes.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
• /
• v.31 no.1 s.256
• /
• pp.36-42
• /
• 2007

This paper presents mechanical design, fabrication and test of a biomimetic fish robot actuated by a unimorph piezoceramic actuator, LIPCA(Lightweight Piezo-Composite curved Actuator.) We have designed a linkage mechanism that can convert bending motion of the LIPCA into the caudal fin movement. This linkage system consists of a rack-pinion system and four-bar linkage. Four types of artificial caudal fins that resemble caudal fin shapes of ostraciiform subcarangiform, carangiform, and thunniform fish, respectively, are attached to the posterior part of the robotic fish. The swimming test under 300 $V_{pp}$ input with 0.6 Hz to 1.2 Hz frequency was conducted to investigate effect of tail beat frequency and shape of caudal fin on the swimming speed of the robotic fish. At the frequency of 0.9 Hz, the maximum swimming speeds of 1.632 cm/s, 1.776 cm/s, 1.612 cm/s and 1.51 cm/s were reached for fish robots with ostraciiform, subcarangiform carangiform and thunniform caudal fins, respectively. The Strouhal number, which means the ratio between unsteady force and inertia force, or a measure of thrust efficiency, was calculated in order to examine thrust performance of the present biomimetic fish robot. The calculated Strouhal numbers show that the present robotic fish does not fall into the performance range of a fast swimming robot.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.34 no.6
• /
• pp.401-415
• /
• 2021

Soft robots are promising devices for applications in drug delivery, sensing, and manufacturing. Traditional hard robotics are manufactured with rigid materials and their degrees of motion are constrained by the orientation of the joints. In contrast to rigid counterpart, soft robotics, employing soft and stretchable materials that easily deforms in shape, can realize complex motions (i.e., locomotion, swimming, and grappling) with a simple structure, and easily adapt to dynamic environment. Among them, the magnetic actuators exhibit unique characteristics such as rapid and accurate motion control, biocompatibility, and facile remote controllability, which make them promising candidates for the next-generation soft robots. Especially, the magnetic actuators instantly response to the stimuli, and show no-hysteresis during the recovery process, essential for continuous motion control. Here, we present the state-of-the-art fabrication process of magnetically controllable nano-/micro-composites, magnetically aligning process of the composites, and 1-dimensional/multi-dimensional multimodal motion control for the nextgeneration soft actuators.

• International Journal of Fuzzy Logic and Intelligent Systems
• /
• v.5 no.4
• /
• pp.316-321
• /
• 2005

We designed and implemented fish robots for various purposes such as autonomous navigation, maneuverability control, posture balancing and improvement of quick turns in a tank of 120 X 120 X 180cm size. Typically, fish robots have 30-50 X 15-25 X 10-20cm dimensions; length, width and height, respectively. It is essential to have the ability of quick and smooth turning to avoid collision with obstacles or walls of the water pool at a close distance. Infrared distance sensors are used to detect obstacles, magneto-resistive sensors are used to read direction information, and a two-axis accelerometer is mounted to compensate output of direction sensors. Because of the swing action of its head due to the tail fin movement, the outputs of an infrared distance sensor contain a huge amount of noise around true distances. With the information from accelerometers and e-compass, much improved distance data can be obtained by fuzzy logic based estimation. Successful swimming and smooth turns without collision demonstrated the effectiveness of the distance estimation.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
• /
• 2007.05a
• /
• pp.415-420
• /
• 2007

Creatures in nature flap their wings to generate fluid dynamic forces that are required for the locomotion. Small-size creatures do not use flapping wings. Thus, it is questionable at which Reynolds number the propulsion using the flapping wings are effective. In this paper, the onset conditions of the thrust generation from the combined motion of flat plates (heaving, pitching in the motion and also tandem, biplane in the array) is investigated using a Lattice Boltzmann method. To solve the pitching motion of the plate on the regularly spaced lattices, 2-D moving boundary condition was implemented. The present method is validated by comparing the wake patterns behind a oscillating circular cylinder and its hydrodynamic characteristics with the CFD results. Present method can be applied to the design of micro flapping propulsors for biomedical use.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
• /
• v.4 no.5
• /
• pp.219-224
• /
• 2015

In this paper, the designed fish robots DOMI ver1.0 is researched and development for aquarium underwater robot. The presented fish robot consists of the head, 1'st stage body, 2nd stage body and tail, which is connected two point driving joints. The model of the robot fish is analysis to maximize the momentum of the robot fish and the body of the robot is designed through the analysis of the biological fish swimming. Also, Lighthill was applied to the kinematics analysis of robot fish swimming algorithms, we are applied to the approximate method of the streamer model that utilizes techniques mimic the biological fish. The swimming robot has two operating mode such as manual and autonomous operation modes. In manual mode the fish robot is operated to using the RF transceiver, and in autonomous mode the robot is controlled by microprocessor board that is consist PSD sensor for the object recognition and avoidance. In order to the submerged and emerged, the robot has the bladder device in a head portion. The robot gravity center weight is transferred to a one-axis sliding and it is possible to the submerged and emerged of DOMI robot by the breath unit. It was verified by the performance test of this design robot DOMI ver1.0. It was confirmed that excellent performance, such as driving force, durability and water resistance through the underwater field test.

• Proceedings of the Korea Information Processing Society Conference
• /
• 2016.10a
• /
• pp.510-513
• /
• 2016

Detecting of the object in image processing is substantial but it depends on the object itself and the environment. An object can be detected either by its shape or color. Color is an essential for pattern recognition and computer vision. It is an attractive feature because of its simplicity and its robustness to scale changes and to detect the positions of the object. Generally, color of an object depends on its characteristics of the perceiving eye and brain. Physically, objects can be said to have color because of the light leaving their surfaces. Here, we conducted experiment in the aquarium fish tank. Different color of fish robots are mimic the natural swim of fish. Unfortunately, in the underwater medium, the colors are modified by attenuation and difficult to identify the color for moving objects. We consider the fish motion as a moving object and coordinates are found at every instinct of the aquarium to detect the position of the fish robot using OpenCV color detection. In this paper, we proposed to identify the position of the fish robot by their color and use the position data to control the fish robot gathering in one point in the fish tank through serial communication using RF module. It was verified by the performance test of detecting the position of the fish robot.