Development of an infrared ray controlled fish-like underwater microrobot

Novel materials such as ICPF has been used as actuators in underwater microrobot for many years, and this paper developed an individual fish-like underwater microrobot which consists of ATMEL AVR minimum control system, Infrared Ray Data Association system and ICPF (Ionic Conducting Polymer Film) actuators. We use atmega16 as the control centre of the mechanical and control system of the microrobot, Infrared Ray receiver receive the infrared signal and give feed back voltage signal to AVR, then AVR sent square control signal to the electric relay as the circuit changer to adjust the input voltage signal of ICPF actuator and make the microrobot carrying out different motion underwater. The infrared communication system could be used for communication between the microrobot and mother submarine with 940nm 38k infrared ray. We discussed the infrared ray control signals on the ICPF actuator, and gave the basic communication code of microrobot. At last, we set up experiment to test the possibility of control signals on ICPF actuator and use Infrared ray control the single microrobot, the result show us the possibility of microrobot pre-movement and direction change movement driven by different type control signals. At last, we set up the experiment to make three microrobot keep the formation and go ahead together.