Design and evolution of a piezoelectrically actuated miniature swimming vehicle

• Published in: IEEE/ASME transactions on mechatronics Vol. 8; no. 1; pp. 66 - 76
• Main Authors: Borgen, M.G., Washington, G.N., Kinzel, G.L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01-03-2003; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Actuators; Battery powered vehicles; Biological materials; Design engineering; Digital; Digital control; Evolution; Exact sciences and technology; General equipment and techniques; Instruments, apparatus, components and techniques common to several branches of physics and astronomy; Mobile robots; Physics; Piezoelectric actuators; Propellers; Propulsion; Prototypes; Remotely operated vehicles; Rigid-body dynamics; Swimming; Transducers; Vehicle driving; Vehicles; piezoelectric actuator; Flexible fin propulsion; swimming vehicle
• ISSN: 1083-4435; 1941-014X
• DOI: 10.1109/TMECH.2003.809131

This work details the design of a miniature swimming vehicle that propels itself through oscillations of a flexible fin mounted in the stern. The fin is driven through a mechanism that is actuated by two curved-beam bending piezoelectric actuators. An optimization routine is used to design the mechanism for rigid body guidance. The actuators are modeled statically using the Bernoulli-Euler method. Hamilton's principle is applied to the actuators and, by employing the modal analysis, a dynamic actuator model is developed and compared to experimental data. The physical evolution of the swimming vehicle is discussed, and a prototype for an on-board digital control circuit is evaluated. The latest vehicle design, which incorporates on-board digital control, is presented in terms of its design and experimentally determined the performance characteristics. The current swimming vehicle prototype achieves fish-like maneuvering and an approximate velocity of 0.25 m/s.