2016 Al-Sadeq International Conference on Multidisciplinary in IT and Communication Science and

Applications (AIC-MITCSA) – IRAQ (9-10) May

Fish Locomotion Modeling and Simulation

Based on Carp Fish Monitoring
Ammar Ibrahim Majeed Abduladhem Abdulkareem Ali, SMIEEE
Electrical Engineering Department Computer Engineering Department
University of Basrah University of Basrah
Basrah, Iraq Basrah, Iraq
E-mail: ammar.alkindy@uomustansiriyah.edu.iq E-mail: abdulademl@yahoo.com

Abstract—Building successful applications using mimicked robotic

fish required a comprehensive study to the various parameters
affecting fish’s performance during swimming in water, such as
thrusting force, swimming speed, manoeuvrability, etc. during
various swimming behaviour including straight swimming, c-turn
escape and s-shape maneuver. The high complexity of the
underwater environments pushed the researchers to find new
techniques for underwater robots modelling. Among these
techniques, video model prediction technique plays an important
role in describing the rules covering the relationships between the
fish and its environment. This paper introduces an experimental
method to model and then simulate, using Matlab, the main
swimming modes of a carangiform Carp fish swimming based on
the continuous video monitoring. The suggested models may be
used in the future to build and control a real counterpart robotic
fish and to produce the important autonomous navigation
commands that govern the robotic fish locomotion. The realistic
results of fish swimming simulation prove the validity of suggested
models.
II. CARP FISH SWIMMING MODES
Building a 3D simulation environment for a Carp fish
requires monitoring and analysis of its locomotion in various
swimming modes in order to acquire the useful data necessary to
determine specific control variables during swimming. The Carp
fish can swim in various swimming modes. Studying these
modes is necessary to specify the parameters affecting the
swimming process. These modes are categorized as follows;
A. Periodic Straight Line Swimming Mode
In normal states, fish swim steadily in periodic mode. This
swimming technique is used to cover large distances at a
constant speed, may be with a low acceleration/deceleration of
about 0.3L/s2, where L is the fish body length [4], see Fig 1.

Key words—Mathematical modeling, Virtual carp fish robot, 3D

Simulation.
I. INTRODUCTION
Fish have acquired amazing swimming capabilities after
millions of years of evolution, which are very close to optimal
with regard to their habitats of lives [1]. They can thrust
themselves by the harmonize motion of the body, fins, and tail
achieving incredible noiseless, effective and maneuverable
propulsion [2]. Many researchers and engineers focus on the
design and realization of the mechanical structure of a fish-like
robot with the guidance of fish-like robot related theory studies
contributed by biologists and fluid mechanics experts, and
achieved valuable results [3]. But the current fish-like robot
systems cannot give a good solution due to the restrictions on
materials and techniques. On the one hand, the current materials
as well as the components used for making fish-like robots
cannot satisfy the needs of the theory studies. On the other hand,
the swimming mechanism of a fish, especially the kinematics
and dynamics characteristics of it, is
Fig. 1. Periodic fish swimming in a straight line.
B. Transient Turning C or S Shape Swimming Mode
The live fish can turns by executing few successive motions;
firstly, the fish swim steadily in a straight manner; secondly, it
bends its body toward its centroid taking the shape of letter „C‟
for a very short time interval, then, after the head of the fish
become in the desired orientation, its posterior body part and tail
restore the initial stretched straight shape; finally, fish cruises
toward the required direction. These movements are constructed
for the robotic fish to emulate the turning procedure steps,
namely, cruising, arcing the body, restoring straight shape, and
cruising once again, see Fig 2.

not well studied. The motivation of this study is to try a new top-
down research mode of the study of the fish-like robot related
Fig. 2. Transient fish swimming. a) C-turn start, b) Fish path during C-turn, c) S-
problems. shape maneuver, (d) Fish path during S-shape maneuver.
 2016 Al-Sadeq International Conference on Multidisciplinary in IT and Communication Science and
Applications (AIC-MITCSA) – IRAQ (9-10) May
The fish can turn with very low angular speed of nearly 0.5
rad/s, with fixed linear speed. There are many other swimming
modes that can be categorized as transient, such as; burst, brake,
coast and ascent-descent swimming modes. These modes could
be designed from the straight and turn swimming modes with
some modifications to the amplitude and/or the frequency of
undulation of the robotic fish tail.
The swimming speed of the robotic fish can be controlled by
modulating either the tail links undulation frequency f or the
amplitude of links undulation. To enhance the maneuvering
capability of the fish, two swimming maneuver movement
modes for obstacle and predator avoidance are designed to
imitate the transient behavior of the live fish. A series of
experiments were carried out on a live Carp fish for both straight
and turning swimming modes to get the required data to
complete the fish modeling.
III. CARP FISH MONITORING
A live Carp fish was monitored in a laboratory to acquire the
required data necessary for designing the swimming modes
explained previously. The fish was monitored during the
swimming in a periodic straight mode as well as transient
turning modes.
A. Periodic Straight Line Swimming Monitoring
The straight swimming was performed in the Respirometer
tunnel for three swimming speeds namely; low, middle and high
speed, see Fig 3.
(a) (b)
Fig. 3. Respirometer tunnel.
In this work, Fourier series was used to build the
mathematical model of the fish swimming movements. The
presented model and the control variables for a swimming fish
are evaluated from the image processing of the frames acquired
from the recorded video. During the image processing, the Carp
fish was divided into five sections, determined by the fish total
length. Each intersection is marked as a data point including the
fish nose and the tail tip points. These points marked with
yellow dots on the fish body centerline represent the digitization
data points within the frames. The separation of each data point
can be seen in Fig 4.
Fig. 4. Carp fish divided into five sections.
The motion of the six data points at the fish body centerline
were traced and stored during video recording. The motion of
each data point was then analyzed using Matlab program and
after that a model was built to characterize the motion of each
data point. The fish motion in addition to several mathematically
important variables such as frequency, amplitude, acceleration
and phase difference are extracted.
The body midline was marked with a blue line and it also
divided into five parts and the angles between these parts (φj)
were used as an indicator of the fish body bending state.
Assuming the length of each link be lj (j=1, 2, 3, ... , n), where
n represents the number of robot links. For each tail link, the
starting and ending points would be labeled, (xj-1, yj-1) and (xj, yj)
respectively, and the angle between any two adjacent links lj-1
and lj would be φj, see Fig 5.
Fig. 5. A simplified model of carangiform swimming.
Once the data point‟s positions known from the processing of
each frame, the values of the joint angles φj would be also
known. These angles are then stored using an [n x o] Look-up
Table in the memory of the robotic fish controller, where o is the
discretization degree of the traveling wave of the fish tail and it
was chosen to be 20 in this work.
1) Experiments in a swimming tunnel: Monitoring the
swimming of live fish in its ordinary natural environment is not
practical, for this reason, a small homemade respirometer tunnel
was designed and implemented to be used during studying the
fish swimming movements within adjustable environmental
conditions. The designed tunnel provides a precise method to
control the speed of water in the tunnel as well as the
temperature under which the experiment is carried out in
addition to keeping a laminar water flow, see Fig 3.
The swimming experiment starts by placing a Carp fish in a
swimming tunnel and then, the speed of water in the tunnel is
adjusted to get a suitable flow. The lowest speed for the fish
swimming is specified the fish began to swim while the highest
speed for the fish swimming is specified when the fish gave up.
The middle speed is the mid-way between the lowest and highest
speeds.
Figure 3 depicts the camera setup used to record the fish
during swimming. The camera was fixed at a height of 20cm
above the water surface of the tank. For each fish swimming
mode; high, medium and low speed, a period of 1min was
recorded. In each recorded video, only 2-3sec portion was taken
and analyzed.
 2016 Al-Sadeq International Conference on Multidisciplinary in IT and Communication Science and
Applications (AIC-MITCSA) – IRAQ (9-10) May
The position of each data point was analyzed in each frame
using a Matlab program where a second degree (D2) Fourier
function was fitted through the x-y positions of the data points.
The position and separation between the data points is
determined according to the fish length. The second data point on
the fish body centerline was taken as a reference point (point
zero), which is the starting point of the flexible body part.
Figure 6 shows some frames that from one cycle of the fish
tail (swimming at 1.89 Bl/s). These frames were extracted from a
video recorded at 25 fps using Sony HandyCam and then
segmented into individual frames using a Matlab program.

Fig. 6. Frames extracted from monitoring video, for one tail fin cycle (Frame
Rate= 25 fps, swimming velocity 1.89 Bl/s).
2) The procedure of an experiment in a swimming tunnel: After
the fish was placed in the test tunnel, the tunnel water flow was
adjusted at a low speed of about (0.1m/s) to permits the fish
under the test to acclimatize to the new environment and quiet
down. When the fish gets calm then the experiment can be
started.
3) Mathematical modelling using Fourier interpolation: In this
section the models used to characterize the fish locomotion and
the changing variables are evaluated, described and explained.
Fourier interpolation was used to model the movements of the
data points. Simulation of fish motion with two degrees (D2)
was considered a good choice. Fourier series can be obtained by
equation 1 below.
(1)
Where ad and bd are model parameters. Fourier series
parameters were computed using the position of data points
collected through fish swimming experiments. The experimental
data points are graphed on the same graph with the data points
Fourier model where the movement is assumed sinusoidal. The
2nd degree Fourier representation for all models can be seen in
equation 2.
(2)
4) Data fitting: The x-y coordinates were extracted from the
video recordings plotted and fitted using a second degree
Fourier interpolation in Matlab to obtain the equation for the
sinusoidal motion for each data point. Each data point had not
less than 15 samples and was enough to fit a Fourier model
through. The raw data and the fitted Fourier curve for each data
point can be seen in Fig 7.
Fig. 7. Plotting the undulating data points. Undulation amplitude (in pixels) vs.
frame from nose of the fish to its tail. Blue circles represent the raw data points
and the red line is the fitted Fourier model.
Here one can observe that the wavelength does not change
much towards the tail, therefore the undulation frequency is
approximately remains constant at the same speed although
there are a very slight frequency variation. The undulation
amplitude should increase as shown in equation 3.
A1 < A2 < A3 …. (3)
It can be seen from Fig 7 that points 1 and 2 are not agree
with this rule, this is because the fish‟s center of gravity lies at
the first third of the fish‟s body length (point 2), therefore the
undulation amplitude growths after the center of gravity to the
fish‟s tail. For this reason equation 3 would be as seen in
equation 4.
A1 > A2 < A3 ...... A6 (4)
In order to explain the relation between the fish motion and
the increment in the fish velocity, one can compares the motion
of the same point on the back of the fish (such as data point
number 5) which is displayed in Fig 8 over the three different
velocities. 0.95 Bl/s, 1.89 Bl/s and 3.37 Bl/s.
Fig.8. Carp fish data point 5 for 0.95, 1.89 and 3.37 Bl/s swimming speed.
From Fig 8 one can see that the amplitude increases with
increased speed.
B. Transient C-Turn or S-Shape Swimming Monitoring
In order to implement these responses with the simulated and
implemented robotic fish, a series of laboratory experiments was
carried out to collect the required data for these responses. In
 2016 Al-Sadeq International Conference on Multidisciplinary in IT and Communication Science and
Applications (AIC-MITCSA) – IRAQ (9-10) May
these experiments, a digital video camera fixed on a stand was
positioned so as to record the activity of the fish in the basin.
The experiments have demonstrated that sound energy generated
by dropping a ball bearing into the fish basin from a height of
50cm, which simulates a predation attempt can stimulates the
fish to swim in one of these modes.

a. C-TURN SWIMMING
When a fish gets a strong sound stimulus, or is attacked by a
predator, an alarm reaction or an escape reaction is triggered. As
the fish take the shape of C-letter during the turn then this
reaction is known as the C-start response. This reaction makes
the fish rapidly begins its escape from the dangerous region, see
the drawings in Fig 2a. The drawings show that an attacked fish
would execute two different successive motions to alter its Fig. 11. Plotting all data points for C-turn swimming. Amplitude (in pixels) vs.
orientation away from the attacker. In the first movement, it frame (or time in 1/100 sec) from nose of the fish to its tail. Blue circles
would bend its body like a C-letter shape to go away from the represent the raw data points and the red line the fitted Fourier model.
source of sound. In the second movement, it would then
elongate its body from the bent state. b. S-SHAPE SWIMMING
1) The procedure of an experiment in a swimming basin: The
1) The procedure of an experiment in a swimming basin: a same procedure of C-turn was performed on fish in order to
single Carp was placed in an observation basin measuring acquire the data of swimming in S-shape maneuver except the
25x25x25cm. The walls of the basin were opaque and the top change in type and nature of stimulus used in this mode of
left open. The basin was filled with water at 27°C to a depth of swimming, see the drawings in Fig 2c. In this case a sudden
5cm. The footage recorded was then examined using a Matlab movement of objects inside water basin. The recording data for
program. The position of each data point on the body centerline this mode of swimming is shown in Fig 12.
and the inter angles between the segments of the body
centerline, seen in Fig 9, was determined following the start of
the stimulated C-turn escape response. A mean of the three fast
starts was recorded, see Fig 10.

Fig.9. Carp fish data points and body centerline during C-turn swimming, shown
orientation angle (α) and inter body midline segments angles (φ1, φ2, φ3 and φ4).
The orientation angle (α) shown in Fig 9, represents the
amount of fish body turn as compared with the previous
orientation in the previous recorded frame.
Fig. 12. Selected frames extracted from monitoring video, for stimulated fish
during S-shape maneuver, (Frame Rate= 100 fps).
2) Fourier interpolation model for S-shape swimming: The x-y
coordinates were extracted from the video recordings plotted
and fitted using a second degree Fourier interpolation in Matlab
to obtain the equations of motion for each data point in S-shape
swimming mode. The raw data and the fitted Fourier curves can
be seen in Fig 13.

Fig. 10. Selected frames extracted from monitoring video, for stimulated fish
during C-turn escape, (Frame Rate= 100 fps).

2) Fourier interpolation model for C-turn swimming: The x-y

coordinates were extracted from the video recordings plotted
and fitted using a second degree Fourier interpolation in Matlab
to obtain the equations of motion for each data point in C-turn
swimming mode, see Fig 11.
 2016 Al-Sadeq International Conference on Multidisciplinary in IT and Communication Science and
Applications (AIC-MITCSA) – IRAQ (9-10) May
Fig. 13. Plotting all data points for S-maneuver swimming. Amplitude (in pixels)
vs. frame (or time in 1/100 sec) from nose of the fish to its tail. Blue circles
represent the raw data points and the red line the fitted Fourier model.
IV. PROPULSION SYSTEM MODELLING
Modelling the propulsive system of a virtual robotic fish is
necessary in the estimation of the thrusting and manoeuvring
control forces and moments. The undulation frequency and
undulation amplitude which represent the inputs of the model
are delivered to the model of the virtual servos as servos
frequencies and arms angles. The output of each virtual servo is
the desired arm displacement. These arms displacements are fed
into the tail kinematics which rotates the tail links at specified
angular displacement at the various joints of the robotic fish tail.
There are two main techniques for determining the thrusting
forces, these are, the vortex theory [5] and elongated body
theory and its derivatives [6]. The first determines the thrust
force generated from analysing the parameters of vortices
generated in the wake which is considered as a complex task [7].
The second determines the thrusting force generated by a fish
like propulsion according to the large amplitude elongated body
theory introduced by Lighthill [6]. In this method, the major part
of momentum transfer between water and fish is assumed to be
take place at the fish caudal fin. The formula that can be used to
compute the thrusting force is the same that given in equation 5.
(5)
Where FT represents the thrusting force in (N), mv represents
body mass in (kg/m), wt represents the tail vertical velocity in
(m/s) and Wt represents the horizontal velocity of the tail tip in
(m/s).
V. HYDRODYNAMIC DAMPING TERMS
One force that acts on any vehicle operating in the underwater
environment is hydrodynamic damping or drag. This force is
one of the forces that contribute to the dynamics of the vehicle
and as such a term is required in the forces and moments section
of the model to represent the drag force. Damping is
approximated using the standard equation for drag shown in
equation 6 [8].
(6)
Where ρ is the density of fluid (kgm-3), CD is the drag
coefficient, A is the cross-sectional area (m2) and U is the
velocity of the vehicle (ms-1). This equation is used to calculate
the drag force acting in surge, sway and heave and also used to
estimate the rotational drag terms in roll, pitch and yaw. The
equation for drag requires the drag coefficient CD to be known.
As the robotic fish body was assumed to be a prolate ellipsoid,
then the drag coefficient can be estimated using equation 7 seen
below [9],
(7)
Where a is radius of ellipsoid along x-axis and b is the radius
of ellipsoid along y-z plane. The drag force produced by the fins
located on the body is estimated using the standard drag
equation and knowledge of the shape of the fins.
VI. RESTORING FORCES AND MOMENTS
The restoring forces and moments are the terms which take
into account the gravitational and buoyancy forces. Two
important parameters in calculating these forces and moments
for underwater vehicles are the distance between the origin of
the body-fixed reference frame, the centre of gravity (COG) and
the centre of buoyancy (COB) of the vehicle. For simplicity the
vehicle is assumed to be neutrally buoyant. Obtaining neutral
buoyancy is a near impossible task within the hardware but
making this assumption simplifies a number of terms within the
model.
The gravitational and buoyancy vector used for the simulation
of the robotic fish vehicle with body centre of gravity at (x G, yG,
zG) and centre of buoyancy at (xB, yB, zB) is given in equation 8
[10].
(8)
Where W=mg and B=ρgV are the robot weight and buoyancy
forces respectively, V is the robot volume.
VII. WATER CURRENTS EFFECT
Controlling the robotic fish requires taking the effect of the
disturbances like wind, waves and water current into account.
During this work, the effects of wind and waves would not be
considered. The water currents in some situations can be
increased up to 3 m/s [11]. In a structured environment, such as
a pool, the effect of a current should be taken into account where
the effect of current is large enough to cause the robot dynamics
change [12]. In the inertial frame, the water currents, was
assumed constant and irrotational, see equation 9, i.e.
m/s (9)
and . The water current effect must be considered in the
dynamics equation of a body swimming in a fluid. This can be
achieved by using a relative velocity in body-fixed frame when
computing the centripetal and Coriolis forces and the damping
forces, see equation 10 [12];
 2016 Al-Sadeq International Conference on Multidisciplinary in IT and Communication Science and
Applications (AIC-MITCSA) – IRAQ (9-10) May
(10)
VIII. 3D SIMULATION OF A VIRTUAL ROBOTIC FISH
Figure 14 shows the GUI of a Matlab program that simulates
a 3D swimming of robotic fish. The program enables the user to
adjust the dimensions of each tail link in addition to adjusting
the body and nose lengths to simulate any fish specie including
the Carp fish of course. The simulated robotic fish has four tail
links; with a virtual servo at each joint represented by vertical
dashed blue lines.
Fig. 14. Simulation of virtual robotic fish with Matlab.
IX. STRAIGHT SWIMMING MODE SIMULATION
Figure 15 depicts the extracted tail data of a straight
swimming. In this figure, the tail of the virtual fish is undulating
at a frequency of 1Hz with undulation angle of 42º.
Fig. 15. The simulation of the four tail links undulation (including caudal fin) for
the virtual robotic fish, at tail frequency of 1Hz and undulation angle of 42º.
X. TRANSIENT C-TURN SWIMMING MODE
For a transient C-turn swimming the extracted data was
drawn as depicted in Fig 17. This figure demonstrates the
animation of the tail and caudal fin data points of the virtual
robotic fish during the shrink and release stages.
Fig. 17. The simulated tail bending sequence in C-turn swimming.
XI. TRANSIENT S-MANEUVER SWIMMING MODE
For a transient S-shape maneuver swimming the extracted
data was drawn as shown in Fig 19. This figure shows the
animation of the tail and caudal fin data points of the virtual
robotic fish during the shrink and release stages.
Fig. 19. The simulated tail bending sequence in S-shape maneuver swimming.
XII. CONCLUSION
This paper has presented a mathematical model of a
biomimetic virtual robotic fish. Development of the model was
based on the monitoring of the carp fish using a Sony
HandyCam camera. The development of the models provides a
framework that allows for different types of actuation schemes
for biomimetic propulsion systems to be evaluated. The
simulation was dependent on the curve fitting of the monitoring
data and it indicates that the propulsive system may provide
improved maneuverability with a smaller steady turning radius
and less overshoot during course changes. The development of a
model without passing through complex mathematical processes
provides a framework for evaluating the performance of
different types of actuation systems for biomimetic propulsion
systems without cumbersome mathematical efforts. From the
experimental results, it was noticed that at fixed tail undulation
frequency, different undulation amplitudes produces different
fish swimming velocities. In contrast the fish speed is directly
proportional to frequency of tail undulation when the undulation
angle is kept constant.
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