Analysis of Body-Fin Cooperative Propulsion Mechanism of Koi Carp Using Pose Estimation

Abstract

AbstractWith the rapid development of science and technology, advanced underwater robots have extensively promoted human beings’ abilities to understand, explore, and preserve the oceans. Understanding the mechanism of fish movement has essential scientific and practical significance for advancing underwater robotics technology. On the one hand, it can reveal the secret of efficient swimming of fish and help to understand the behavior of fish; on the other hand, it can provide a basis for the research and development of new underwater robots with low noise, high efficiency, high stability, and high mobility. In this research, to analyze the synergistic propulsion mechanism of fish body and fins, a fish body-fin synergistic propulsion model is established to provide a theoretical basis for such analysis. A fish pose and motion estimation platform is constructed to provide data support. With the help of the constructed platform for quantifying the movement of a koi, fish wave characteristics are analyzed for three koi swimming states (advancing, retreating, and turning), and four koi swimming states (advancing, retreating, turning, and floating up) are summarized and analyzed using the proposed body-fin coordination model. The proposed analysis method provides an innovative idea for fish movement research. The research results can greatly help the designing, developing, and optimizing modern underwater robots. The code and dataset for this research are available inhttps://github.com/wux024/AdamPosePlug.