Analysis of Rock-climbing Fish Swimming and Design of a Novel Wire-driven Propeller

Abstract

The rock-climbing fish "glides" on the underwater wall at a maximum speed of 16 BL/s. Meanwhile, they are also sucker creatures that firmly attach themselves to the underwater wall under the impact of water currents. Previous studies have shown that the integration of suction-climbing functionality in these fish is mainly derived from the microstructure around the suction cups. In this paper, we found that the coordinated deformation of the full body of the rock-climbing fish has a positive effect on the motion of the suction-climbing mode by performing finite element method simulations of the airfoil of the rock-climbing fish in a fluid environment. We then present a novel single-motor-based design of a wire-driven robotic fish for bionic rock-climbing fish swimming, which is capable of realizing different propulsive states of the rock-climbing fish. Our findings provide support for the development of underwater suction-climbing robots based on the bionic rock-climbing fish design, encouraging further research in this area.