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Bioinspired Closed-loop CPG-based Control of a Robot Fish for Obstacle Avoidance and Direction Tracking

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Abstract

This paper presents a study on bioinspired closed-loop Central Pattern Generator (CPG) based control of a robot fish for obstacle avoidance and direction tracking. The biomimetic robot fish is made of a rigid head with a pair of pectoral fins, a wire-driven active body covered with soft skin, and a compliant tail. The CPG model consists of four input parameters: the flapping amplitude, the flapping angular velocity, the flapping offset, and the time ratio between the beat phase and the restore phase in flapping. The robot fish is equipped with three infrared sensors mounted on the left, front and right of the robot fish, as well as an inertial measurement unit, from which the surrounding obstacles and moving direction can be sensed. Based on these sensor signals, the closed-loop CPG-based control can drive the robot fish to avoid obstacles and to track designated directions. Four sets of experiments are presented, including avoiding a static obstacle, avoiding a moving obstacle, tracking a designated direction and tracking a designated direction with an obstacle in the path. The experiment results indicated that the presented control strategy worked well and the robot fish can accomplish the obstacle avoidance and direction tracking effectively.

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Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank Mr. Yudong Chen, and Mr. Binghuan Yu for their help in building the robot fish and conducting experiments. Research was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (class A) (Grant No. XDA22040203), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 2019XX01), GDNRC[2020]031, and the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (Grant No. 2020A1515010621).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shien-Ming Wu School of Intelligent Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 511442, China

    Jiayong Chen, Ruxu Du & Yong Zhong

  2. Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Bo Yin

  3. China Academy of Electronics and Information Technology, Beijing, 100086, China

    Chengcai Wang

  4. Precision Engineering Research Center, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Fengran Xie

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  1. Jiayong Chen
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  2. Bo Yin
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  3. Chengcai Wang
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  4. Fengran Xie
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  5. Ruxu Du
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  6. Yong Zhong
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Correspondence to Yong Zhong.

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Chen, J., Yin, B., Wang, C. et al. Bioinspired Closed-loop CPG-based Control of a Robot Fish for Obstacle Avoidance and Direction Tracking. J Bionic Eng 18, 171–183 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42235-021-0008-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42235-021-0008-0

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