An Autonomous Robotic Fish for Mobile Sensing

In this paper an innovative approach to robotics education is reported, where hands-on learning is integrated with cutting-edge research in the development of an autonomous, biomimetic robotic fish. The project aims to develop an energy-efficient, noiseless, untethered swimming robot for mobile sensing purposes. The robot is propelled by an ionic polymer-metal composite (IPMC) actuator and equipped with a GPS receiver, a ZigBee wireless communication module, a microcontroller, and a temperature sensor for autonomous navigation, control, and sensing. The two phases of the development are described, emphasizing both the technical approaches and the learning paradigms. The developed robotic fish will be further used as an educational kit for K-12 students and as a research tool for investigating multi-robot collaborative sensing