A BCF Bionic Robot Fish Driven by A Dielectric Elastomer Actuator

Abstract

Bionic robot fish have been widely used in various underwater exploration activities due to their advantages of low noise, low resistance, high flexibility and high concealment. A dielectric elastomer (DE) is a soft material that significantly deforms under the action of an electric field. It has the characteristics of large strain, flexibility, high energy density and fast response speed, which lead to its unique advantages in the actuation of bionic fish. In this paper, the actuation characteristics of a dielectric elastomer are used to design and prepare a limit-type antagonistic dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA). A BCF bionic robot fish is proposed based on the DEA, which has a maximum swimming speed of 22.7 mm/s.