Motion Characteristic and Analysis of Bionic Jellyfish with Fluid-Driven Soft Actuator

Abstract

This paper presents a kind of bionic jellyfish robot with fluid-driven soft actuator. The jellyfish robot is based on the motion research of natural jellyfish. The motion characteristics of fluid-driven soft actuator are studied, and the motion performance of the soft actuator are simulated by using finite element analysis method. The improved kinematic and dynamic model of jellyfish is established considering the non-linear function of the projected area of the robot jellyfish. Combined the fitting projected area function and the dynamic model, a three-factory study is conducted to determine the impact that the length, thickness of the actuator and the fluid pressure have upon the velocity of the bionic jellyfish. It is found that all three of these factors significantly impacted velocity. According to the result of the simulation, the new structure and the improved dynamic model are feasible and can meet the design requirement: velocity meet 13mm/s and swing frequency range from 0.25Hz to 0.5Hz.