Development of an autonomous robotic fish

Abstract

This paper describes the development of an autonomous robotic fish, meant to be used as an experimental platform for the validation of bio-inspired control architectures and sensory-motor coordination models. In its development, particular attention has been paid to the system architecture and the bio-mechatronic design in order to enable 3D swimming patterns, which can be planned taking into account the information flow generated by a rich sensory system. Also, attention has been paid to implement a versatile software architecture. Preliminary results about bio-inspired motion patterns generation and coordination are presented. This work lays the foundations for the development of bio-inspired underwater robots capable of complex behaviors, as required in search-and-rescue applications, as well as in exploration tasks.