Improved Locomotion of an AEF Swimming Robot Using Fractional Order Control

This paper presents an improved locomotion for an N-link swimming artificial eukaryotic flagellum (AEF) microrobot using a fractional order approach for both the navigation waveform and control. The proposed locomotion is tested on a simulator of the robot, developed in the MATLAB/Simulink environment, which allows to select different modes of swimming and control strategies, as well as evaluate the performance of the locomotion in terms of propulsion, power efficiency or tracking. Different robust fractional order proportional-derivative (PDμ) controllers are designed in order to reduce the effects of the load variation of the actuator of each link depending on its position along the flagellum. For comparison purposes, three-parameter integer order controllers are also designed. Simulation results are given in order to show the benefits of the proposed locomotion in comparison with classical waveforms and previous results.