Abstract: A robotic fish, BASEMACK1, is designed and fabricated by mimicking the shape of a live mackerel. Three DC servo-motors are serially linked together and actuated to mimic the mackerel’s Carangiform motion. Hydrodynamic charac-teristics of a fish-mimetic test model are experimentally identified and utilized in order to numerically simulate fish swimming. The discrete set of kinematic and dynamic parameters are obtained by considering required horizontal and lateral forces and minimum energy consumption. Using the optimized parameter set, optimal control of the robot is studied.

Key words: mackerel-mimicking robot, optimal control, trajectory tracking