Modelling and simulation of a biomimetic underwater vehicle

This paper describes work carried out at the University of Glasgow investigating biomimetic fish-like propulsion systems for underwater vehicles. The development of a simple mathematical model is described for a biomimetic fish like vehicle which utilizes a tendon drive propulsion system. This model is then compared with a model of a vehicle of similar size but with a propeller for main propulsion. Simulation results for both models are shown and compared

A hybrid dynamic model for bio-inspired soft robots - Application to a flapping-wing micro air vehicle.

International audienceThe paper deals with the dynamic modeling of bio-inspired robots with soft appendages such as flying insect-like or swimming fish-like robots. In order to model such soft systems, we propose to use the Mobile Multibody System framework introduced in [1][2][3]. In such a framework, the robot is considered as a tree-like structure of rigid bodies where the evolution of the position of the joints is governed by stress-strain laws or control torques. Based on the Newton-Euler formulation of these systems, we propose a new algorithm able to compute at each step of a time loop both the net and passive joint accelerations along with the control torques supplied by the motors. To illustrate, based on previous work [4], the proposed algorithm is applied to the simulation of the hovering flight of a soft flapping-wing insect-like robot (see the attached video)

Lattices of hydrodynamically interacting flapping swimmers

Fish schools and bird flocks exhibit complex collective dynamics whose self-organization principles are largely unknown. The influence of hydrodynamics on such collectives has been relatively unexplored theoretically, in part due to the difficulty in modeling the temporally long-lived hydrodynamic interactions between many dynamic bodies. We address this through a novel discrete-time dynamical system (iterated map) that describes the hydrodynamic interactions between flapping swimmers arranged in one- and two-dimensional lattice formations. Our 1D results exhibit good agreement with previously published experimental data, in particular predicting the bistability of schooling states and new instabilities that can be probed in experimental settings. For 2D lattices, we determine the formations for which swimmers optimally benefit from hydrodynamic interactions. We thus obtain the following hierarchy: while a side-by-side single-row "phalanx" formation offers a small improvement over a solitary swimmer, 1D in-line and 2D rectangular lattice formations exhibit substantial improvements, with the 2D diamond lattice offering the largest hydrodynamic benefit. Generally, our self-consistent modeling framework may be broadly applicable to active systems in which the collective dynamics is primarily driven by a fluid-mediated memory