Development of underwater robots using piezoelectric fiber composite

Underwater robot using piezoelectric fiber composite with the merits of being soft and capable of large displacement, is proposed in this paper. By pasting the thin and flexible composite on to a structure, meandering motion observed in underwater creatures such as fish can be realized by generating propagation wave for propulsive force. Hence, a compact, effective and powerful robot capable of underwater movement can be realized. This paper describes the mechanism design and control method of the robot using piezoelectric fiber composite based on the principle of underwater creatures and shows the feasibility of the proposal by the experimental results of two developed prototypes.