Design, fabrication, and realisation of a robotic fish actuated by dielectric elastomer with a passive fin

Abstract

Robotic fish actuated by smart materials has attracted extensive attention and has been widely used in many applications. In this study, a robotic fish actuated by dielectric elastomer (DE) films is proposed. The tensile behaviours of DE film VHB4905 are studied, and the Ogden constitutive equation is employed to describe the stress-strain behaviour of the DE film. The fabrication processes of the robotic fish, including pre-stretching treatment of the DE films, electrode coating with carbon paste, and waterproof treatment, are illustrated in detail. The dynamic response of the fabricated DE actuators under different excitation voltages is tested based on the experimental setup. Experimental results show that the first-order natural frequencies of the obtained DE actuator in air is 4.05 Hz. Finally, the swimming performances of the proposed robotic fish at different driving levels are demonstrated, and it achieves an average swimming speed of 20.38 mm/s, with a driving voltage of 5kV at 0.8 Hz.