Abstract
The objective of this study was to measure unsteady fluid force acting on limbs when swimming. For this objective, we developed a robot arm, which has five degrees of freedom and can simulate swimming motion of both upper and lower limbs in water. The robot arm has tri-axial moment sensor at each joint and dynamometer which can measure the force and moment acting on the whole robot arm. In the exploratory experiment in a water tank, the four swimming strokes, that is, crawl, breast, back, and butterfly, were simulated. The resultant forces and moments suggested the usefulness of the robot arm in measurement of unsteady fluid force with swimming motion.
