A Bio-inspired Swimming Robot Concept Design for Marine Aquaculture Applications

Abstract

In this master thesis project, a concept design of bio-inspired swimming robot is developed for marine aquaculture applications. According to the requirements from the marine aquaculture industry, the manta ray is selected as the biological prototype of the concept design based on the investigation of aquatic creatures with different swimming locomotion. With a thorough study of manta rays, two methodologies of designing a manta ray like swimming robot are generalized. Corresponding with the methodologies, the swimming robot design mainly focuses on the structure design and propulsion mechanism design. The concept design is verified by comparing the 3D animation with the videos of real fish at the last.