Backward swimming gaits for a carangiform robotic fish

This paper focuses on the gaits planning method of the backward swimming for unsymmetrical structure bio-inspired robotic fish. Based on the differences between the anguilliform mode and carangiform mode swimming, a method for searching gaits of backward swimming was proposed to plan the motion of the devel- oped carangiform robotic fish. The body envelope of European eel's backward swimming was mimicked according to the freely swimming model, which was pro- posed to analyze the propulsion produced by the undulation of the multi-link tail. Finally, simulations and experiments were conducted to demonstrate the gaits searching method for the bio-inspired carangiform robotic fish.