Bionic Robot Manta Ray Based on Dielectric Elastomer Actuator

摘要

Manta rays are a special kind of fish that can swim rapidly in the water depending on its special body structure. In this paper, a bionic fish structure is designed and tested to simulate the swimming process of manta rays. The robotic fish is driven by a dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA), which contains a pair of wing-like lateral fin functional structures to simulate the fanning process of manta rays’ lateral fins. The bionic fish is controlled by square-wave voltage. When the voltage is applied, DEA expands and opens the double-wing structure. While the voltage is cancelled, DEA will return to the original closed state. The length of robot fish is 100 mm and the width is 75 mm. Driven by periodic voltage, the swimming speed of robot fish is 58mm/s. Furthermore, this paper proposes some methods that can improve the stability and response speed of DEA when it works in water.