Design of Tentacle Structure and Dynamic Parameters for a Biomimetic Jellyfish Robot and Investigation on Its Propulsion Performance

ABSTRACT

Driven by the demand for efficient robotic propulsion in complex underwater environments, this work presents a biomimetic jellyfish robot inspired by the locomotory characteristics of biological jellyfish. Establishing the biomimetic propulsion foundation based on the kinematic features of three representative jellyfish species spanning large, medium, and small scales, this study designed a double‐crescent biomimetic tentacle by integrating the Fin Ray effect and the crescent‐shaped caudal fin morphology of tuna. A computational fluid dynamics analysis was conducted to investigate the effects of swing frequency, swing angle, and geometric parameters on the hydrodynamic characteristics of the tentacle structure during in situ propulsion. To investigate the propulsion performance of the biomimetic tentacle and to optimize its structural and dynamic parameters, a dedicated propulsion testbed was fabricated, and both orthogonal and vortex‐visualization experiments were conducted. On the basis of the optimized tentacle structure and dynamic parameters, a biomimetic jellyfish robot prototype was fabricated and subjected to underwater propulsion evaluation experiments. The developed prototype exhibited an average thrust of 3.66 N and an average propulsion velocity of 98.6 mm/s. This study provides a systematic methodology for the design and optimization of tentacle structures and dynamic parameters in biomimetic jellyfish robots.