In order to improve the performance of the submarine robots, the robotics community has been considered a new approach known as the biomimetic. It consist on the study of a living systems such, fish, to design and construct a bio-inspired robot. In this context, recently was took place an European project called ANGELS, in which the objective is to design and construct a fish-like robot inspired from the swimming of the eel. This thesis takes place in this project and is dedicate to the study of the swimming of the robot. Experiments were carried out in a hydrodynamic test bed designed and entirely set up for this study. At first,the kinematic shapes (i.e. deformation of the body) adopted by living eel during its swimming against or slantwise a uniform flow, were characterized by mean ofan image processing analysis technique. This study has allowed the establishing of a mathematical correlative model, describing the deformation of the eel’s body in these swimming conditions. Secondly, we studied the effects of the body’s deformation on the lateral flow produced during swimming. PIV experiences were carried out on different elliptic cylinder shapes. These experiments have allowed the understanding and the validation of a theoretical approach, concerning the swimming dynamic of the fish, used to obtain the propulsion force produced in reply of the body deformation during swimming. Finally, experiments were carried out during the anguilliform swimming in a non-uniform flow such as, avon-Kàrmàn vortex street. The goal was to study the hydrodynamics interactions and in particular the mechanisms of the exploited vortices adopted by fish. These experiences were realized on the swimming of a living eel and an anguilliform robot. Experiments led on the robot show that under certain conditions, the propulsive force of the robot swimming in a von-Kàrmàn vortex street can be increased of about 30 comparison to its swimming in a uniform flow. Experiments with eel have allowed the highlighting of a particular shape of its body deformation formed when it’s swimming in a reverse von-Kàrmàn vortex street. The qualitative analysis realized on this kinematic observation led us to propose a mechanism adopted by the eel to exploited energy from altered flow.
