Computational and experimental study on

dynamics behavior of a bionic underwater

robot with multi-flexible caudal fins
Ou Xie
School of Mechanical Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China and School of Mechanical Engineering,
Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou, China
Boquan Li
School of Mechanical Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China, and
Qin Yan
School of Mechanical Engineering, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou, China

Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to develop a novel type of bionic underwater robot (BUR) with multi-flexible caudal fins. With the coordinate movement of multi-
caudal fins, BUR will combine the undulation propulsion mode of carangiform fish and jet propulsion mode of jellyfish together organically. The use of
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and experimental method helps to reveal the effect of caudal fin stiffness and motion parameters on its hydrodynamic forces.
Design/methodology/approach – First, the prototype of BUR was given by mimicking the shape and propulsion mechanism of both carangiform
fish and jellyfish. Besides, the kinematics models in both undulation and jet propulsion modes were established. Then, the effects of caudal fin
stiffness on its hydrodynamic forces were investigated based on the CFD method. Finally, an experimental set-up was developed to test and verify
the effects of the caudal fin stiffness on its hydrodynamic forces under different caudal fin actuation frequency and amplitude.
Findings – The results of this paper demonstrate that BUR with multi-flexible caudal fins combines the hydrodynamic characteristics of undulation
and jet propulsion modes. In addition, the caudal fin with medium stiffness can generate larger thrust force and reduce the reactive power.
Practical implications – This paper implies that robotic fish can be equipped with both undulation and jet propulsion modes to optimize the
swimming performance in the future.
Originality/value – This paper provides a BUR with multi-propulsion modes, which has the merits of high propulsion efficiency, high acceleration
performance and overcome the head shaken problem effectively.
Keywords Biomimetics, Autonomous robots, Robot design, Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV)
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction In nature, most of aquatic organisms use jet or undulation

As the key equipment for underwater tasks, autonomous
underwater vehicles (AUVs) are widely applied in water quality
monitoring, seafloor resource exploration and military activities
(Bogue, 2015). Because of the limitation of the structure and
propulsion mechanism, traditional rotary propeller propulsion
mode has various defects, which severely restrict the
application of the conventional AUVs (Williams et al., 2011).
Inspired by the aquatic organisms, researchers have started to
study bionic underwater robot (BUR) in recent years (Low,
2007; Zhou et al., 2010; Takesue et al., 2011; Ma et al, 2015). It
is expected that by mimicking the body structures and
swimming mechanism of aquatic organisms, higher
performance AUVs can be developed.
propulsion mode as their swimming mode (Tong and Zhuang,
1998). The undulation propulsion mode is featured by high
swimming efficiency, strong maneuverability and low noise (Wang
et al, 2009), while the jet propulsion mode has the merits of
providing greater instantaneous thrust in a short time, good
accelerating performance and strong environment adaptability
(Liu and Hu, 2010). Researchers have studied these two
propulsion modes by the means of theoretical modeling (Linden
and turner, 2004; Lighthill, 1960; Anderson and Demont, 2000),
numerical simulation (Kim et al, 2016; Xia et al, 2013; Jiang and
Grosenbaugh, 2006), morphology and kinematics study
(Chowdhury et al, 2014; Bajcar et al, 2009; Salumae and
Kruusmaa, 2011; Blevins and Lauder, 2012), and various BURs
are developed inspired by real aquatic organisms directly(Heo et al,

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/0143-991X.htm
Industrial Robot: An International Journal
45/2 (2018) 267–274
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 0143-991X]
[DOI 10.1108/IR-06-2017-0122]
This research is financially supported by Science and Technology Planning
Project of Suzhou, China (Grant no. SNG2017054), National Natural
Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 51477109), National Natural
Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 51305287).
Received 28 June 2017
Revised 4 November 2017
Accepted 9 November 2017

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 Bionic underwater robot
Ou Xie, Boquan Li and Qin Yan
2007; Nguyen et al, 2016; Kim and Lee, 2017; Li et al, 2014).
However, all studies mentioned above are limited, as they mimic
only a single propulsion mode or body structure of the aquatic
organisms. It can only accomplish limited tasks in a specific
underwater environment and cannot meet the requirements of the
complex underwater operations.
Jellyfish swimming is a typical jet propulsion mode, and
carangiform fish uses the BCF mode (Breder, 1926) to achieve the
undulation propulsion. Inspired by both carangiform fish and
jellyfish, a novel type of BUR with multi-flexible caudal fins is
proposed in this paper, which combines the undulation propulsion
mode of fish and jet propulsion mode of jellyfish together
organically. By using the coordination control of the multi-flexible
caudal fins, the BUR is capable of achieving a series of motions:
undulating, jetting, turning, submerging, emerging and braking.
Caudal fin, as the actuator, has been extensively studied. Many
studies indicate that the flexibility of the caudal fin has significant
effects on its hydrodynamic forces (Yang et al, 2011; Nakaba et al,
2009; Nguyen et al, 2013; Ziegler and Pfeifer, 2013). In addition,
there are also some attempts on the performance study of the
variable surface area caudal fin and variable shape caudal fin (Liu
et al., 2015; Yang et al., 2016). However, the work for coupling
dynamics of multi-flexible caudal fins is rare (Zhang et al., 2016).
In this study, a BUR prototype was introduced and its kinematics
analysis was conducted in Section 2. Then, the hydrodynamic
performance of a 2D simplified BUR model was investigated by
the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method in
Section 3. To investigate the effects of stiffness and actuation
parameters of the caudal fin on its hydrodynamic forces,
experiments were conducted under the developed testing platform
and the results were discussed in Section 4. Section 5 concludes
the work with some recommendations made for future work.
2. The BUR prototype
2.1 Design inspirations and prototype model
As shown in Figure 1(a), Bajcar et al. (2009) pointed out that
the swimming process of the jellyfish can be divided into four
stages, namely, lumen expanding, water sucking, lumen rapid
shrinking and water spraying. The carangiform fish undulates
the last half or third of their body in transverse direction to
Figure 1 Design inspirations
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generate thrust force [as shown in Figure 1(b)]. Inspired by the
body structure and swimming mechanism of both jellyfish and
carangiform fish, a novel type of BUR is proposed [as shown in
Figure 1(c)]. Figure 2 shows the prototype of BUR, which
consisted of a head cabin and four caudal fins. A missile-like
streamlined contour is introduced for head cabin design and
the caudal fins mimic the fishtail structure with two joints. The
overall configuration of the BUR mimics the symmetrical
structure of jellyfish, while the actuate unit imitates the caudal
fin of the carangiform fish.
2.2 Kinematics analysis
By using coordinate movement of the multi-caudal fins, the BUR
can accomplish a series of maneuver motions as shown in Figure 3.
In Figure 3(a), when the four caudal fins undulate
simultaneously and the face-to-face installed caudal fins have
the motion phase difference of 180°, the BUR achieves the
undulation propulsion mode. Jet propulsion mode [as shown in
Figure 3(b)] is that the four caudal fins keep straight to slowly
open and then rapid fold simultaneously to form a high-speed
compressed water flow in the rear of BUR. The jet propulsion
movement of the BUR is divided into two stages, namely,
outspread fins stage and fold fins stage. Figure 3(c) shows the
braking actions. When the BUR moves forward, four caudal
fins rapidly opens to the maximum angle simultaneously to
generate a large hydraulic resistance and stopping quickly. As
shown in Figures 3(d), (e) and (f), when a pair of face-to-face
installed caudal fins deflect a large angle in a random direction
(up, down, left or right) simultaneously, the BUR will suffer a
large torque in this direction; accordingly, the turning,
submerging or emerging actions are accomplished.
In this paper, we only consider the undulation and jet
propulsion movement. To describe the locomotion of the four
Figure 2 Prototype of BUR
 Bionic underwater robot
Ou Xie, Boquan Li and Qin Yan
Figure 3 Various swimming modes of BUR
caudal fins, four coordinate systems are established in Figure 4.
The original points of the four coordinate systems are set as the
conjunction points between the head cabin and caudal fins. All
x-axises point to the length direction of the BUR and y-axises
are parallel to the transverse movement direction of the caudal
fins.
According to the research results conducted by Lighthill
(1960), the undulation propulsion movement of the caudal fins
can be described as:


yi ðxi ; tÞ ¼ c1 xi 1 c2 xi 2 sinðkxi 1 v t 1 w i Þ;
i ¼ 1; :::; 4; 0 < xi  L (1)
where yi is the transverse displacement of the ith caudal fin, the
x-axis is the center line of the undulation wave of cruise straight;
c1 is the linear wave amplitude envelope; c2 is the quadratic
 rs
wave amplitude envelope; k ¼ 2p l is the travelling wave
number; l is the wave length; v is the wave angular frequency;
w i is the initial phase difference; L is the length of caudal fin;
and t is time.
To realize the symmetric movement, the four caudal fins
share the same swimming parameters including c1, c2, k and v ,
and the initial phase difference w i should satisfy the following
equations:
 
j w 1  w 3 j ¼ 180 andj w 2  w 4 j ¼ 180 and w 1 ¼ w 2 (2)
For jet propulsion movement, the movement can be described
as:
h    i structure on the coupling interface, respectively; t f and t s
yi ¼ xi tan u m sin 2p t T 1 w i i ¼ 1; :::; 4; 0 < xi  L (3)
where yi is the transverse displacement of the ith caudal fin; the
x-axis is the center line of the flapping movement; u m is the
Figure 4 Moving coordinate systems
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maximum flapping angle; T is the period; w i is the initial phase
difference; L is the length of caudal fin; and t is time.
3. CFD analysis
3.1 Numerical method
In the present work, the Arbitrary-Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE)
method is used to solve the Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI)
problem. The governing equations for fluid are described as
follows (Rugonyi and Bathe, 2001; Scotti and Finol, 2007):
rv¼0 (4)
@v
rf 1 r f ½ðv  wÞ  r ¼ r  t f 1 f Bf (5)
@t
where V, W indicate the flow velocity vector and moving ALE
frame velocity vector, respectively; r f is fluid density; f Bf is the
body force vector which is neglected for the fluid analysis; t f is
the fluid stress tensor which is described as:
sf ¼ pd ij 1 2 m« ij (6)
1
« ij ¼ ðrv 1 rvT Þ (7)
2
where p is fluid pressure; d ij is Kronecker delta; m is viscosity of
the fluid; and « ij is strain rate.
In terms of the structure domain, the Lagrangian method is
applied to calculate the displacement and force and its
governing equations are as follows:
@ 2 us
¼ r  t s 1 f Bf (8)
@t2
where r s is the density of structure; us is the vector of the
structural displacement; t s is the structure stress tensor; and f Bf
is the body force vector.
To solve the kinematics and dynamics equilibrium on the
coupling interface, the following two equations are introduced:
uf ¼ us (9)
n  tf ¼ n  ts (10)
where u f and u s indicate the displacement of the fluid and
indicate the stress of the fluid and structure, respectively; and n
is a unit normal vector of the fluid-structure interface.
3.2 Modeling and parameters setting
For flexible fin modeling, an effective modeling method is that
simplify the fin into several links (Liu et al., 2014; Eldredge,
2007). In view of the symmetrical structure and movements of
the BUR, a simplified 2D simulation model was established.
Based on Figure 5, the caudal fin is consists of a caudal
peduncle link and a caudal fin link.
To investigate the effects of the flexibility of the caudal fin on
its hydrodynamic forces, several caudal fin stiffness cases are
presented based on the actual mechanical structure. According
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Figure 5 Simplified model of BUR Figure 7 Pressure Nephogram of jet propulsion movement

to Table 1, R-R indicates that both the links are rigid with a
large Young’s modulus, R-M case indicates the caudal
peduncle link is rigid and the caudal fin link has medium
flexibility, and R-F case suggests the caudal peduncle link is
rigid and the caudal fin link is flexible with a small Young’s
modulus.
3.3 Results analysis
Figure 6 shows the curves of thrust and lift force in jet
propulsion mode. As shown in Figure 6(a), the thrust force
curves show the sinusoidal variation and share the same
frequency of 1 Hz with the driven motion, and there are
positive and negative forces that appear in a swimming period.
The R-R case can generate thrust force with a maximum peak
of 14.5 N and mean thrust force of 1.2 N. Compared with R-R
case, the peak force of R-M case is lower, but the mean thrust
force is 1.2 N as well. The R-F case performs the worst with a
peak thrust of 4.9 N and mean thrust force of 0.5 N. In terms of
the lift force, as shown in Figure 6(b), all curves show irregular
variation. The amplitude of the lift force curve in R-F case is
larger than that of the other two cases.
The pressure contours of two chosen cases in jet propulsion
mode can be found in Figure 7. For R-R case, as shown in
Table I Stiffness of the caudal fin
Sequence Case Caudal peduncle link Caudal fin link
1 R-R Y: 2 GPa `Y: 2 GPa
2 R-M Y: 2 GPa Y: 20 MPa
3 R-F Y: 2 GPa Y: 0.2 MPa
Figure 7(a), a high-pressure center occurred on the outside of
each caudal fins and a tiny low-pressure center appeared in the
end of each caudal fins, and then when it moves on to T/9, a
high-pressure center occurred on the inside of each caudal fins
and a low-pressure center occurred on the outside of each
caudal fins. At 2T/9, the pressure distribution among the
caudal fins is opposite to 0T. Similarly, the pressure
distribution among the caudal fins at 3T/4 is opposite to T/9.
For the R-M case, as presented in Figure 7(b), the pressure
contours are different from the R-R case in specified time
sequences. Compared with R-R case, the R-M case has smaller
disturbance to the surrounding fluid. Additionally, the caudal
fins have obvious deformation in R-M case and the vortexes
strength is higher than that of the R-R case.
The thrust and lift force curves in undulation mode are
shown in Figure 8. Obviously, both the thrust force and
lift force show the sinusoidal variation. The frequency of all
thrust force curves doubles the frequency of driven motion, but
the lift force shares the same frequency with the driven motion.
The thrust forces are positive in the whole period, while the lift
force symmetrically distributed around 0N. For thrust force,
the R-M case performs the best, which exhibits the largest peak
of 2.2 N and largest mean thrust force of 0.96 N. Compared
with thrust force, the amplitude of lift force curve is lower, and
the R-F case exhibits the largest lift force amplitude.
Similar to previous analysis, the vorticity nephograms of the
R-R and R-M cases are compared in undulation propulsion
mode. As shown in Figure 9, for R-R case, the (tailing edge

Figure 6 Time-varying thrust and lift force for three stiffness cases in Figure 8 Time-varying thrust and lift forces for three stiffness cases in
jet propulsion mode undulation propulsion mode

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Ou Xie, Boquan Li and Qin Yan
Figure 9 Vorticity Nephogram of undulation propulsion movement
vortex) TEVs shed from the fin tip at 0T. At T/4, the caudal
peduncle link reaches the maximum flapping angle, yet the
caudal fin link lags a certain angle. A new TEV formed at each
fin tip. Then, at T/2, the TEVs shed from the fin tip. For the
next half cycle, the caudal fins pitch downstroke and perform
an opposite process. For the R-M case, the caudal fin deforms
greatly and the vorticity intensity is higher than that of the R-R
case, proving that the swimming of R-M case can generate
greater thrust.
By making comprehensive comparison, the hydrodynamic
performances can be concluded as follows:
 Caudal fin can generate larger thrust force peak and mean
thrust force in jet propulsion mode, but the drag forces
appear in each swimming period. The BUR can achieve
full cycle propulsion in undulation propulsion mode.
 The lift forces in undulation propulsion mode are
significant lower than that in jet propulsion mode.
 The R-M case makes the best performance in two
propulsion modes, which showed that suitable caudal fin
stiffness made significant effects on the hydrodynamic forces.
4. Experiments
4.1 Experimental procedure
As shown in Figure 10, a testing platform was developed to
conduct force measurement, including a 3m  2m  1m
(length  width  depth) transparent water tank and a 3D
force measuring equipment. The BUR was installed on a round
fixture which connects with a 3D force sensor [as shown in
Figure 10 The experimental setup
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Figure 10(a)]. Two coordinate systems were incorporated in
Figure 10(b). The force measuring coordinate system
O1X1Y1Z1 was set in the center of the force sensor and the body
coordinate system OXYZ is set in the baseboard center of the
head cabin. The force sensor with a measuring range of 6125N
in each axis can measure the hydrodynamic forces along the
three axes direction directly. We define the force along the
X axis as the lateral force, the force along the Y axis as the thrust
force, and the force in Z direction as the lift force.
Three types of caudal fins with different stiffness were tested.
As presented in Figure 11, the caudal fins developed by
different materials including Rubber, Polypropylene Plastic
(PP) and Stainless Steel (SS), and all caudal fins have the same
shape and dimensions. The elastic modulus of the three caudal
fins can be found in Table II.
4.2 Results and discussion
To investigate the effects of caudal fin stiffness on its
hydrodynamic forces, experiments were conducted to
comparative analysis the hydrodynamic force of three kinds of
caudal fins in both propulsion modes. A example of time-
varying forces is ploted in Figure 12. In terms of undulation
prpulsion mode, the SS fins generate positive and negative
alternate thrust forces with a maximun peak of 80 N. The other
two types of caudal fins generate positive forces in all time and
the thrust force curve amplitude of the polypropylene fin is
lager than that of the rubber fin. The lateral forces generate by
three type of caudal fins symmetrically distributed near 0 N and
the lateral force curve amplitude increases with the stiffness of
the caudal fin. The lift forces of the three types of caudal fins
vary periodically with time and the peak value also increases
with the caudal fin stiffness. For jet propulsion mode, the thrust
force of the three types of caudal fins characterized by the
alternatively positive and negative variations with time and the
thrust force curve amplitudes of the three types of caudal fins
are almostly the same with a peak value about 110 N.
Furthermore, the lift force peak value of the SS fin is obviously
larger than that of the other caudal fins.
The mean value of the hydrodynamic force can calculated by:
ð
T
1
F¼ F ðtÞdt (11)
T
0
Figure 11 Bionic caudal fins
Table II Elastic modulus of the three caudal fins
Polypropylene Stainless steel
Material Rubber plastic (PP) (SS)
Elastic modulus (GP) 0.0078 0.89 200
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Figure 12 Time varing hydrodynamic forces

where F(t) is the time varying hydrodynamic force; T is the Figure 14 Mean thrust force as a function of amplitude at f = 1.3 Hz
caudal fin actuation period. (a) and frequency at a = 13 cm (b) in jet propulsion mode
To reveal the effects of caudal fin actuation amplitude and
frequency to its thrust force, a series of experiments were
conducted under different caudal fin actuaiton amplitude and
frequency.
Figures 13 and 14 exibit the mean thrust force as a function
of the caudal fin actuation amplitude and frequency in two
propulsion modes. For undulation propulsion mode, as
presented in Figure 13(a), the thrust forces produced by PP fin
and rubber fin incease almost linearly with amplitude. The
thrust forces generated by SS fin increase quikly with the
amplitude initiallly and then keep constant even decline. In
addition, the thurst force produced by PP fin is larger than that
of the other two caudal fins. Figure 13(b) shows the thrust force
variation trend with frequency. Obviously, the thrust force a maximun thurst force of 34N appears at a amplitude of 15 cm
variation trend of the three caudal fins are consistent. The and a frequency of 1.3 Hz. For jet propulsion mode which can
thrust force slowly increases with frenquency initially and then
be found in Figure 14(a), there is a demarcation point at
increases quikly at 0.8 Hz. Finally, the thurst force keeps
A = 11 cm. At A < 11 cm, the thrust forces generated by rubber
constant even declines after 1.3 Hz. Moreover, the PP fin
fin and PP fin increase with the amplitude, while the thrust
performs best in the three types of caudal fins, which generates
force generated by SS fin quikly declines with the amplitude,
even changes into the drag force. After that point, the thrust
Figure 13 Mean thrust force as a function of amplitude at f = 1.3 Hz forces generated by rubber fin and PP fin decrease with the
(a) and frequency at a = 13 cm; (b) in undulation propulsion mode amplitude, while the descent rate of the thrust force of SS fin
decreases significantly. Figure 14(b) shows the thrust force as a
function of the frequency, indicating that the thrust forces
generated by PP fin increase almost linearly with the frequency,
while the thrust forces generated by rubber fin vary irregularly
with frequency. Especially, the thrust forces generated by SS fin
are negative for most tested frequencies.

5. Conclusions
In this paper, a novel type of bionic underwater robot with
multi-flexible caudal fins was developed inspired by both
carangiform fish and jellyfish. Through using the morphology

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Ou Xie, Boquan Li and Qin Yan
observation and propulsive mechanism analysis of both
carangiform fish and jellyfish, a BUR prototype was proposed
and the kinematics models in both undulation and jet
propulsion modes were established. The hydrodynamic
performance of a 2D simplified BUR model was investigated
with the application of the CFD method. Moreover, a
hydrodynamic forces measuring platform was established and
the hydrodynamic forces in both undulation and jet propulsion
modes were measured at different caudal fin actuation
frequency and amplitude. The results demonstrated that the
BUR with multi-flexible caudal fins combines the
hydrodynamic characteristics of both undulation and jet
propulsion modes. The caudal fin can generate a larger thrust
force peak in jet propulsion mode while a larger mean thrust
force was exhibited in undulation propulsion mode. In
addition, the caudal fin stiffness has significant effects on its
hydrodynamic forces and the medium stiffness caudal fin
performs best. However, only the effects of caudal fin stiffness
on its hydrodynamic forces were considered in this paper and
another important factor of the caudal fin shape will be
investigated in the future work.
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Corresponding author
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