Determining the bodily motion of a biomimetic underwater vehicle under oscillating propulsion

Abstract

The paper describes a biomimetic autonomous underwater vehicle (BAUV) that mimics the shape and behavior of fish. The swimming motion of the BAUV is achieved using an oscillating body. The body spline is specified by a set of parameters, which are utilized using Genetic Algorithms (GAs) by evaluating a fitness function over several swimming trials in a water tank. The fitness function of the optimization is defined as the ratio of the forward velocity to the required driving power of the joint motors. The resulting body spline is found to be better than all other body splines at all tail-beating frequencies. Each body spline has an optimal tail-beating frequency.