The growing demand for reduction in co2 emissions from marine vehicles enthused researchers and scientists to design to come up with more efficient propulsion systems. in addition, the use of conventional screw propellers for these vessels results in the damage of the marine biological and eco-systems. the vibration and noise from the propellers have severe damaging effects on marine aquatic life. the natural propulsion systems with which the biological beings such as fishes and birds move are the most efficient. the engineering translation of the aquatic animal propulsion systems and its appropriate application to marine vehicles help them to achieve movement with less power and hence resulting in the co2 emission reduction. the bio-inspired propellers are ecologically pure and provide good controllability to the marine vehicles. they also provide very good stopping and turning abilities and motion stabilization. finally, the application of bio-inspired propellers to underwater vehicles reduces the hydrodynamic and acoustic signature (stealth characteristics) and thereby, unable to detect with synthetic aperture radars. in this research, a novel design of a bio-inspired robotic fish with pectoral and caudal fins, which operates at subsurface, is considered. observations show that the tail fin movements of fishes generate forces for propulsion and maneuvering. a lift-based propulsion theory is used to estimate the thrust generated by pectoral fins (used as auxiliary thrust device) and an empirical method is used to estimate the torque at the caudal fin. the fish body shape and fin geometrical parameters are also important with regard to the resistance and powering aspects. numerical and experimental studies are conducted with the robotic fish to determine its resistance in bare hull and also for the case fitted with fins. the propulsive performance and stopping ability of the bio-inspired underwater vehicle is studied experimentally in towing tank of iit madras, and analyzed. these results are presented and discussed in the proposed project.