Biomimetic Actuation Method for a Miniature, Low-Cost Multi-jointed Robotic Fish

This paper presents the Miniature Oscillating Robot Agent (MORA). MORA is a small (12 cm) and low-cost (100) robotic fish which was designed to demonstrate a biomimetic actuation method for efficient swimming. Our goal is to enable the development of underwater robot swarms that can access tight, fragile environments and gather data from the perspective and scale of real fish. Conventional actuation methods are often too large, expensive, or mechanically complex to use in collective behavior applications, which to be practical must be easy to manufacture, low-cost, and small. We arranged six magnet-incoil (MIC) actuators, at 1/unit, in a multi-jointed configuration of three independently controlled joints. Oscillating the joints in a sinusoidal waveform allowed us to replicate the efficient undulatory body motion seen in fish. to replicate the efficient undulatory motion seen in fish. In initial straight-line swimming experiments, MORA achieved a speed of 0.37 BL/s with the potential for faster and more coordinated movement with further experimentation of MIC control settings.