Numerical simulation of dynamics and fluid dynamics for biomimetic underwater robots

Abstract

The paper presents the results of modeling dynamics and hydrodynamics for two types of biomorphic robots: a snake-like robot and a fish-like robot. There were obtained detailed data on the transient process, which desribes the acceleration of robots from a stationary state. Mentioned acceleration was due to large-scale deformation of the robot surface shape. Flow fields near the deformable surface of the robot performing acceleration were also obtained. In fact, there was solved conjugate problem of the robot dynamics and the hydrodynamics of the flowing around fluid. The calculation method is based on the method of deformable grids. This method allows us to have a conservative approximation scheme for hydrodynamic calculations and to save significant computational resources in comparison with other approaches of the conjugate problem solving.