AUV System Spec Sheet

Robo-Pike configuration

Platform: Robo-Pike
Manufacturer: MIT AUV Laboratory
Scientific User: MIT AUV Laboratory

Summary

“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.”