Bionic underwater robot propelled by flexible flapping wings

Abstract

The bionic underwater robot propelled with flexible flapping wings consists of a casing, a right flexible flapping wing, a left flexible flapping wing, a driving unit and a controlling unit. The driving unit includes a reducing motor, a gear train and a crank-rocker mechanism; and the controlling unit includes two steering engines, two link rods, two elevating rudders and one direction rudder. The driving unit and the controlling unit are fixed inside the casing; and each of the right flexible flapping wing and the left flexible flapping wing has front curb girder fixed onto the radical axis and wing surface connect to the casing. The driving unit has crank-rocker mechanism to convert the rotation motion into reciprocation of the wing and can transfer great driving force. The elevating rudders and the direction rudder are controlled separately by the two steering engines with no coupling and simple control.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to an underwater robot framework, more particularly, refers to a bionic underwater robot based on flexible flapping wing propulsion. Background technique [0002] The high-speed, high-efficiency, and high-mobility movement ability of fish in water has always been the goal pursued by human beings. In the past ten years, many scholars at home and abroad have studied the propulsion mechanism of fish from the aspects of theory and experiment. [0003] Michael Sfakiotakis of Heriot-Watt University in the United Kingdom and others believe that the propulsion of fish swimming in water mainly comes from the swing or fluctuation of caudal or pectoral fins. They analyzed several typical swimming modes and calculated the propulsion generated by various swimming modes. They believed that the swimming mode mainly relying on caudal fin propulsion had higher speed and acceleration, while the swimming mode mainly relying on pectoral fin ...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

But in fact, due to insufficient quantitative research on the propulsion mechanism, imperfect design and processing, etc., the test results of these prototypes still have a large gap with the ideal situation, and the swimming distance per second usually does not exceed 1 times the body length. Fully embodies the advantages of the tail fin propulsion method in terms of speed and acceleration

In addition, the maneuverability of the tail fin propulsion method in the pitch direction is relatively poor, and the inability to quickly float up / dive has become a major problem restricting the application of bionic underwater robots

[0006] 2. Most of the mechanism bodies of the existing robotic fish adopt rigid structures. Although some prototypes use a flexible caudal fin, they are far from being flexible.

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