Bionic manta underwater vehicles will play an essential role in future oceans and can perform tasks, such as long-duration reconnaissance and exploration, due to their efficient propulsion. The manta wings’ deformation is evident during the swimming process. To improve the propulsion performance of the unmanned submersible, the study of the deformation into the bionic pectoral fin is necessary. In this research, we designed and fabricated a flexible bionic pectoral fin, which is based on the Fin Ray^® effect with active and passive deformation (APD) capability. The APD fin was actively controlled by two servo motors and could be passively deformed to variable degrees. The APD fin was moved at 0.5 Hz beat frequency, and the propulsive performance was experimentally verified of the bionic pectoral fins equipped with different extents of deformation. These results showed that the pectoral fin with active–passive deformed capabilities could achieve similar natural biological deformation in the wingspan direction. The average thrust (T) under the optimal wingspan deformation is 61.5% higher than the traditional passive deformed pectoral fins. The obtained results shed light on the design and optimization of the bionic pectoral fins to improve the propulsive performance of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV).

仿生蝠鲼水下航行器将在未来的海洋中发挥重要作用，由于其高效的推进力，可以执行长时间侦察和探索等任务。蝠鲼翅膀的变形在游泳过程中很明显。为了提高无人潜水器的推进性能，需要对仿生胸鳍的变形进行研究。在这项研究中，我们设计并制造了一种柔性仿生胸鳍，它基于 Fin Ray ^®效应，具有主动和被动变形（APD）能力。APD鳍由两个伺服电机主动控制，并且可以被动地发生不同程度的变形。APD鳍以0.5 Hz的拍频运动，实验验证了不同变形程度的仿生胸鳍的推进性能。这些结果表明，具有主被动变形能力的胸鳍可以在翼展方向上实现类似的自然生物变形。最佳翼展变形下的平均推力（T）比传统被动变形胸鳍高61.5%。获得的结果有助于仿生胸鳍的设计和优化，以提高无人水下航行器（UUV）的推进性能。