Research on Under-actuated Flexible Pectoral Fin of Labriform Fish

The new propulsor, whose inspiration is from pectoral fins of fishes, has arisen increasing attention. To improve the performance of the existing labriform bionic pectoral fin, based on the structure and control mechanism of real fish pectoral fin, the under-actuated technology was utilized to design a new flexible bionic pectoral fin. Then, the kinematic model of pectoral fin during fish forward steady swimming and the dynamic model of bionic pectoral was built. Finally, Matlab was used to simulate the kinematic and dynamic performance of bionic pectoral fin. The simulation result shows that the new flexible bionic pectoral fin can imitate the propulsion motion morphology of pectoral fin during fish forward steady swimming well. However, due to the restriction of kinematic model of pectoral fin and structure as well as physical properties of bionic fin ray, there is still tolerance between the locomotion morphology of bionic pectoral fin and that of real fish. Therefore, it is necessary to develop further research on kinematic modeling of pectoral fin and bionic design of fin ray. Additionally, the new bionic pectoral fin reduces the number of the driving variables, providing the possibility and the basis of further reducing the volume as well as the complexity of bionic device of pectoral fin.