Research On New Jellyfish-like Microrobots Driven By Low Voltage

At present, many kinds of underwater robots are developed. Most of them have large volume and complicated structure. They are flexible and require high energy consumption. However, compared with traditional underwater robots with many motor drivers, microrobots driven by intelligent driving materials have the advantages of smaller volume and lower power consumption. It is attracting the attention of many researchers.In recent years, many kinds of underwater microrobots have been developed. Some of the microrobots are invented to work in limited small spaces, such as rock crevices and narrow pipelines. In this paper, we present two kinds of novel type of underwater jellyfish-like microrobot (JM-I and JM-II), mimicking the prototype of hydrozoan medusae. The anatomic configuration of jellyfish is analyzed and simple driving devices are advanced to simulate its jet propulsion. The two microrobots are both driven by a SMA (shape memory alloy) coil spring and two IPMC (Ionic Conducting Polymer Film) actuators. The main driving mechanisms are all SMA driven devices, and their SMA driven devices are designed differently. But the IPMC actuators are the same. They help to change the swimming direction.The software of Fluent is used to simulate the wake flows of the jellyfish-like microrobot (JM-II). Experiments are given and the morphological parameters and the thrust force of the jellyfish-like microrobots are calculated. The theoretical parameters and actual parameters of the microrobots are also compared for further improvement.