With the development of marine resources, research on underwater robots has received unprecedented attention.Thediscovery and\napplication of new smartmaterials provide new ideas for the research of underwater robots, which can overcome the issues of traditional\nunderwater robots and optimize their design. A macro fiber composite (MFC) is a new type of piezoelectric fiber composite\nthat combines actuators and sensors. The material has excellent deflection, good flexibility, and a high electromechanical coupling\ncoefficient. Bionic mechatronics design is an effective way to innovate mechatronics in the future and can significantly improve\nmechatronics system performance. As an important issue for the design of bionic mechatronics, it is necessary to make robots as\nsoft as natural organisms to achieve similar biological movement with both higher efficiency and performance. Compared with traditional\nrigid robots, the design and control of a soft robotic fish are difficult because the coupling between the flexible structure and\nthe surrounding environment should be considered, which is difficult to solve due to the large deformation and coupling dynamics.\nIn this paper, anMFC smart material is applied as an actuator in the design of bionic robotic fish. Combined with the piezoelectric\nconstitutive and elastic constitutive equations of theMFCmaterial, the voltage-drive signal is converted to a mechanical load applied\nto the MFC actuator, which makes the MFC material deform and drives the movement of the robotic fish. The characteristics of\ncaudal fin motion during the swimming process of the bionic robotic fish were analyzed by an acoustic-solid coupling analysis\nmethod. The motion control analysis of the bionic robotic fish was carried out by changing the applied driving signal. Through\nnumerical analysis, a new type of soft robotic fish was designed, and the feasibility of using anMFC smart material for underwater\nbionic robotic fish actuators was verified. The new soft robotic fish was successfully developed to achieve high performance.
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