TY - JOUR
T1 - An Autonomous Charging System for a Robotic Fish
AU - Phamduy, Paul
AU - Cheong, Jayhwan
AU - Porfiri, Maurizio
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant CMMI-0745753, Grant DGE-0741714, and Grant DRL-1200911. (Corresponding author: Maurizio Porfiri.)
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 IEEE.
PY - 2016/12
Y1 - 2016/12
N2 - The use of autonomous underwater vehicles is often hampered by stringent power constraints that limit the duration of their deployment. Here, we present a novel autonomous underwater charging system for robotic fish. The system features a charging station designed with form-fit claws to facilitate the robotic fish docking. A controller is implemented externally to monitor the battery level of the robotic fish, swimming autonomously in two dimensions. When the battery level is low, the controller commands the robotic fish to approach the charging station using video feedback from an overhead camera. The approach angle of the robotic fish to the charging station is optimized through a series of experiments, assessing the success of both docking and electrical contact, as well as the time to approach the charging station. To demonstrate the feasibility of the autonomous charging system, the robotic fish is monitored as it cycles through periods of charging and discharging while swimming in the tank. The proposed system is expected to find application in laboratory and educational settings, where robotic fish should operate with minimal supervision and assistance from technical staff over extended time periods.
AB - The use of autonomous underwater vehicles is often hampered by stringent power constraints that limit the duration of their deployment. Here, we present a novel autonomous underwater charging system for robotic fish. The system features a charging station designed with form-fit claws to facilitate the robotic fish docking. A controller is implemented externally to monitor the battery level of the robotic fish, swimming autonomously in two dimensions. When the battery level is low, the controller commands the robotic fish to approach the charging station using video feedback from an overhead camera. The approach angle of the robotic fish to the charging station is optimized through a series of experiments, assessing the success of both docking and electrical contact, as well as the time to approach the charging station. To demonstrate the feasibility of the autonomous charging system, the robotic fish is monitored as it cycles through periods of charging and discharging while swimming in the tank. The proposed system is expected to find application in laboratory and educational settings, where robotic fish should operate with minimal supervision and assistance from technical staff over extended time periods.
KW - Autonomous charging
KW - biologically inspired robots
KW - docking
KW - educational robotics
KW - vision-based control
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U2 - 10.1109/TMECH.2016.2582205
DO - 10.1109/TMECH.2016.2582205
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84996931906
VL - 21
SP - 2953
EP - 2963
JO - IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics
JF - IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics
SN - 1083-4435
IS - 6
M1 - 7494612
ER -