Artificial Lateral Line Based Obstacle Perception And Avoidance Of Robotic Fish

With the progress of science and technology,robotics technology has made rapid progress.Among the numerous research directions of robotics,the research of bionic robotic fish is relatively few,but it has important significance for research.The study of biomimetic robotic fish is helpful for human beings to explore the marine world and the development of marine rescue,marine archaeology and deep-sea resource exploration.At present,the research direction of robotic fish mainly includes communication,perception,positioning and so on,while traditional robotic fish perception research mostly uses sonar and image technology,but there exist complex topography and poor light underwater.These environmental factors have more serious interferences on sonar and image.It is difficult to overcome these interferences using the existing technology,so the perception problem of robotic fish has always been a difficult problem to solve.With the further studies of biologists,they found that most fish and amphibians have a special sensory organ system called the lateral system,which can help these organisms effectively perceive the surrounding water environment information.Inspired by the lateral system of fish,researchers imitate the function of the lateral system and design artificial lateral system,which has become a hotspot in the field of robotic fish research in recent years.At home and abroad,there are two common design principles of artificial lateral system,one is to make artificial cilia sensor,the other is to use pressure sensor array.Artificial cilia sensor has the characteristics of miniature,precision and easy distribution,but the cost is high and it is not easy to operate.The pressure sensor array has the characteristics of low cost and easy installation,which is suitable for the application of conventional robotic fish.In this paper,based on the principle of pressure sensor array,obstacle perception and obstacle avoidance of robotic fish based on artificial lateral system are studied.The main results of researching are as follows:Firstly,a new type of artificial lateral system is designed and manufactured by using pressure sensor array.The artificial lateral system has the characteristics of expandability and easy installation.Secondly,a new electric system of a boxfish-like robot is designed and manufactured.The electric system of the robot fish is composed of perception unit,control unit and logic unit.It can record the artificial lateral system and the attitude data of the robot fish in real time,and set the swimming parameters of the robot fish in time through the upper computer to control the motion of the robot fish.Thirdly,the experimental environment of obstacle perception was built by using the laboratory square flume experimental platform,flume experiments have been conducted for investigating obstacle perception research.