Liquid environment-adaptive IPMC fish-like robot using extremum seeking feedback

Advances made in the research of IPMC (ionic polymer metal composite) actuators have shown that this technology is highly suitable for both minituarization, and use in environments that may prohibit the use of conventional actuation devices, such as submerged in a fluid. These characteristics indicate the compositepsilas suitability for implementation by small-scale aquatic vessels, such as those that operate within blood-streams to record and transmit biological data or interact with the blood to treat a medical condition. In order to develop such a robot, a suitable control system must be developed that allows for optimization of the IPMC motion to maximise thrust, given constantly changing conditions of the surrounding environment and parameters of the robot itself. This paper seeks to develop such a control system, first by developing a propulsion model for the robot, and then uses Extremum-seeking feedback control to optimise the swimming mode, with the results verified experimentally.