TOADFISH BEHAVIORAL ROBOT FOR FISH AGGRESSION STUDY

By Jun Ko

Abstract:
This project intends to aid Professor Andrew H. Bass and his team from the department of
Neurobiology and Behavior to study the behavior of the toadfish. Why study the toadfish?
Toadfishes are simple vertebrates that can communicate with each other acoustically.
By creating a robot fish that can successfully re-produce the toadfish’s communication, the team
can study how other toadfish respond to these “sound” in a controlled environment.
Therefore, the toadfish project aims to build a robot that essentially mimics toadfish communication.
One distinguishing feature about the male toadfish is that they make different types
of sound to communicate. The toadfish makes loud growling or grunting sounds to
fend off other male toadfish near their nesting site and also sings nest hums to attract female toadfishes.
These sounds are generally in the frequency range of 100 ~ 200Hz with a sound intensity level
of 110dB re 1uPA 15cm away from source. In order to mimic the toadfish, the robot has to
re-produce these sound underwater while meeting the frequency and sound intensity levels.
Different types of speakers/transducers will be tested to generate sound underwater in addition
to meeting the sound requirements. The speaker will be encased in a 3D printed toadfish model
underwater and peripheral circuitry to drive the transducer will be designed and built outside of the robot.
As there are many constraints on speaker size, frequency range, and sound intensity,
different types of speakers were tested for performance.

Report (pdf)

Poster (pdf)