Designing an Robotic Boxfish for the Mechatronics Course

1 Chandrashekhar Thorbole , Wichita State University ,Mechanical Engineering,[email protected]. 2 Behnam Bahr, Wichita State University, Mechanical Engineering , [email protected]. Abstract-This paper discuss about the procedure adapted to mimic the fish tail kinematics to develop a microprocessor controlled biomimetic robot, after review of different Fish swimming modes and understanding the required tail kinematics for different momentum transfer mechanism, we tried to synthesis several compact light weight mechanism which will mimic the Boxfish tail kinematics for the required momentum transfer mechanism. The kinematic analysis of these mechanisms is carried out in Visual Nastran4D for the further selection of the best suited mechanism, after this the body design is highlighted for the stable swimming performance. Tank tests are conducted on the developed fish to investigate the effectiveness of the mechanism selected and to confirm the feasibility of the system and the relation between the speed of the fish and tail beat frequency. The objective of this project is to understand the behavior of rigid body with oscillating tail which is similar to the ostraciiform mode of swimming.