Underwater Robotic Fish

Phase II: Buoyancy

Final Presentation

Project #15029

Multidisciplinary Senior Design

Rochester Institute of TechnologyPage 1

Team Members and Roles

Page 2

Name Role

Sarah Bailey Project Manager and Buoyancy Lead

Chloe Bohlman Webmaster and Electrical Support

Mark Pitonyak Electrical Lead

Igor Drobnjak Systems Lead

Brandon Michale Biomedical Lead

Frederick Cookhouse Mechanical Lead

Agenda

Page 3

● Problem Statement

● Buoyancy

● Communications

● Final Design

● Performance Vs. Requirements

● Final Budget - BOM Review

● Recommendations

● Documentation

Problem Statement

Page 3

The objective of this project is to create an underwater robot that looks and

swims like a fish. The fish is to achieve these biomimetics by utilizing McKibben

muscles to hydraulically propel the fish. The fish will be able to swim forward

and turn, and have depth control using active buoyancy in both RC and

autonomous modes.

Objectives:

● Design an active buoyancy system

● Add underwater remote controlling

● Improve physical aesthetics of the fish

Buoyancy

Page 3

The fish was successfully able to dive to a depth of 3 ft and return to the

surface utilizing manual control of the valves and ballast system.

See Videos Posted on EDGE

Communication

Page 3

Problem:

High frequency wireless systems are

strongly attenuated in water.

Solution:

Developed a 315 MHz transceiver to

communicate with the fish underwater.

Results

Range in air: 300 ft

Range in water: 3 ft

Throughput: 10,000 bps

Final Design

Page 3

Performance vs. Requirements

Page 3

Performance vs. Requirements

Page 3

Performance Vs. Requirements

Page 3

Final Budget - BOM Review

Page 3

Mechanical $ 232.81

Electrical $ 203.76

Main PCB $ 140.73

RF Transceiver $ 47.16

Controller PCB $ 8.81

TOTAL $ 633.26

Recommendations

Page 3

● Shell

○ Devote more time and budget to testing shell

materials

○ Make small samples as with skin

○ If molding on foam, use solid core

○ If using fabric strips, dip in the resin instead of

painting it on

○ DO NOT LEAVE THIS UNTIL THE LAST FEW

WEEKS BEFORE IMAGINE

■ You will not finish on time. This has been

the case the past two years. Do not

become the third team to fail at this.

● Skin

○ Attach velcro by sewing it to the skin

○ This was a big concern for us, as when we went

to use the ecoflex, the velcro peeled right off,

leaving us with no practical method for holding

the skin on the tail

Recommendations have

been recorded in a

document for future teams

to reference. The left is an

example of one major

system that did not meet an

engineering requirement

and our recommendations

to prevent this issue in the

future.

Documentation

Page 3

● Technical Paper

● Instruction Manual

● EDGE Website

● BOM

● Recommendations

● ImagineRIT Poster

● Performance Vs. Requirements