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Robo-Pike
"Here at the MIT Towing Tank we are building
robotic fish. The aim of these robots is to help us learn more about
the complex fluid mechanics that fish use to propel themselves. In the
long run, propelling small autonomous vehicles via fish-like swimming
could have enormous energy savings, and increase the length of time a
small machine could swim. In the mean time, by studying and building
these robots, we hope to answer Gray's paradox, which is that fish
don't seem to have enough muscle power to propel themselves at the
speeds that they do."
"My project here is to build a swimming Pike. The characteristics that
I hope to demonstrate are very quick turning and fast acceleration
from a stop. In the wild, Pike accelerate at rates from 8-12 G's
during a start from a standstill to 6 m/s. While we may not be able to
achieve these wild numbers, half or a quarter of this accelleration
would still demonstrate that flappingfoil propulsion is certainly
capable of higher accellerations than a propeller."
-John Muir Kumph
More about the RoboPike!
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