A bionic experimental platform was designed for the purpose of investigating time accurate three-dimensional flow field, using digital particle image velocimetry （DSPIV）. The wake behind the flapping trail of a robotic fish model was studied at high spatial resolution. The study was performed in a water channel. A robot fish model was designed and built. The model was fixed onto a rigid support frame- work using a cable-supporting method, with twelve stretched wires. The entire tail of the model can perform prescribed motions in two degrees of freedom, mainly in carangiform mode, by driving its afterbody and lunate caudal fin respectively. The DSPIV system was set up to operate in a trans- lational manner, measuring velocity field in a series of parallel slices. Phase locked measurements were repeated for a number of runs, allowing reconstruction of phase average flow field. Vortex structures with phase history of the wake were obtained. The study reveals some new and complex three-dimensional flow structures in the wake of the fish, including ＂reverse hairpin vortex＂ and ＂reverse Karman S-H vortex rings＂, allowing insight into physics of this complex flow.
The relationship between the off-axis angle of the recording setup and the quality of reconstructed particle images in digital off-axis holography is studied. The interference patterns of the same particles in the same plane are recorded at different off-axis angles in horizontal and vertical directions. By means of numerical wave propagation, the particle images are reconstructed so as to evaluate and compare their quality by the numbers of particles picked out and by the signal-to-noise ratio （SNR）. The results provide useful information about the relationship between the off-axis angle and the quality of the reconstructed image.
