Cost of Transport of Undulating Fin Propulsion.

ABSTRACT: Autonomous robots are used to inspect, repair and maintain underwater assets. These tasks require energy-efficient robots, including efficient movement to extend available operational time. To examine the suitability of a propulsion system based on undulating fins, we built two robots with one and two fins, respectively, and conducted a parametric study for combinations of frequency, amplitude, wavenumber and fin shapes in free-swimming experiments, measuring steady-state swimming speed, power consumption and cost of transport. The following trends emerged for both robots. Swimming speed was more strongly affected by frequency than amplitude across the examined wavenumbers and fin heights. Power consumption was sensitive to frequency at low wavenumbers, and increasingly sensitive to amplit

SUBMITTER: Vercruyssen TGA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10296648 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature