Implementation and navigation of a 3-DOF fish robot ‘Ichthus V5.5’

In recent years, there is a rising interest on studying biomimetic fish-like underwater robots because of advantages from mimicking real fish's great maneuverability and high energy efficiency. However, researches about these kinds of underwater robots have not been investigated so much and there are still diverse problems in respect of using of the robotic fish in the real environment such as in the river for monitoring water pollution. Therefore, this study mainly describes development of a robotic fish which can be used for water quality monitoring system. The robotic fish `Ichthus V5.5' has a 3-DOF serial link-mechanism for its propulsion, which is developed in KITECH. Furthermore, we propose a dynamic equation of the fish robot to use the underwater environment. We added several sensors to navigate autonomously in the real environment like river. Also, we installed two kinds of sensor to detect temperature, electric conductivity, pH (hydrogen ion concentration) of water. Therefore, the developed robotic system can be applied to environmental monitoring system for detect pollution or quality of river.