Abstract:
This report presents a project on Fish Robot: Design and Control of an Ionic Polymer
Metallic Components (IPMC) – based Underwater Robot. Nowadays, there are many
significant efforts have been done in order to develop an aquatic robot such fish robot.
Most of the fish robots are using motor which are heavy and noise. Therefore, the
objectives of this project are to study and design of the IPMC, to design the motion of
IPMC and to develop and test the IPMC – based fish robot. Electroactive Polymers,
EAPs or knowns as an artificial muscle that flexible and can produce significant bending
deformations. There two mains types of EAPs; ionic EAPs and dielectric EAPs. For
dielectric polymers, it can control well but need high activation voltage. In contrast to
ionic EAPs, there are involving of diffusion ions and also consist of two electrodes and
one electrolyte. The best example is Ionic Polymer Metallic Components (IPMC). It can
activate with 5V and can generally bending the displacement. When a small voltage
applied, Ionic Polymer Metallic Components (IPMC) undergoes to the anode side. Most
of the fish robot projects were motivated by the fish fin as the fins plays an important
role for fish to swimming in the water. In this project, Ionic Polymer Metallic Components
(IPMC) will plays as caudal tail.
