A miniature hybrid robot propelled by legs

Birch, M.C.; Quinn, Roger D.; Hahm, G.; Phillips, Steven; Drennan, B.; Beer, Randall D.; Yu, Xinyu; Garverick, S.L.; Laksanacharoen, S.; Pollack, Alan J.; Ritzmann, Roy E.

doi:10.1109/iros.2001.976274

Cited by 24 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 10 publications

(12 reference statements)

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“…As we know, most of the insect inspired robots use multi-DOF legs [31][32][33][34][35]39]. These structures lead to some problems, such as the complex control strategy, too much control wires for control or energy supply on the robots' body, complexity of manufacture, limited to realize a compact structure, high possibility of trouble and so on.…”

Section: The Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Prototype of Underwater Microrobot System with An Artificial Swim Bladder

Zhang

Guo

Asaka

2006

2006 International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation

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In this paper, we designed an underwater microrobot system. The system includes a microrobot and an artificial swim bladder. Underwater microrobots are useful in the seabed mining, biology and naval fields. They should be compact structure, easy to be manufactured, efficient locomotion, driven by low voltage, simple control system and upload ability. To attain these purposes, we designed a novel type of biomimetic locomotion with one-DOF legs. The locomotion includes two groups of ICPF (Ionic Conducting Polymer Film) actuators to realize the 2-DOF motions. The microrobot, named Walker-2, has 6 ICPF actuators and 3-DOF motion. It is 47mm in diameter, 8mm in height (in static state) and 0.61g of dried weight. A fish inspired artificial swim bladder, named Bladder-1, is also developed. It is 32*14*14mm 3 in dimension and 0.33g in weight. It is driven by one piece of ICPF actuator. It can float with a maximum upload of 0.17g theoretically, while the experiment result shows the upload can be as weight as 0.26g. The analysis and experimental result shows that the Walker-2 has some advantages, such as more flexible moving motion, stability, loads ability and so on. We also compared with some insect inspired microrobots and some microrobots with one-DOF legs, and the result shows a microrobot with this novel type of locomotion has some advantages. This structure has less actuator, less joints, simpler control system, and compact structure. The underwater microrobot system has powerful applications in the biomedical and naval fields.

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Section: The Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Prototype of Underwater Microrobot System with An Artificial Swim Bladder

Zhang

Guo

Asaka

2006

2006 International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation

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“…Halme et al's WorkPartner [3] has wheels at the end of its legs. Case Western's cricket-inspired robot [1] has wheels in the [9] has four legs that are single-spokes -legs -mounted on axles, and Case Western's Whegs robots [8] have six legs that are each 3 spokes on axles. The research leading to the Whegs robot, for example, was biologically inspired; the platform itself is biomimetic in copying the six legged insect configuration, but departs in that it includes a rotating axle element for each leg.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Each leg has a single translational degree of freedom 1 . A rotational degree of freedom at the apex rotates a reaction mass attached to an arm as shown in Fig.…”

Section: The Rotopod Mechanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Analysis of gaits for a rotating tripedal robot

Lyons

Pamnany

2005

Intelligent Robots and Computer Vision XXIII: Algorithms, Techniques, and Active Vision

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IntroductionOne of the most striking capabilities of animals in general is their ability to orient to a potential danger and to evade it at high speed if necessary. The erratic zig-zag of a surprised vole, or the almost instantaneous disappearance of a fish when a pebble hits the water, leaves a strong impression of speed and maneuverability. The blend of perception and locomotion abilities required to do this is not something that can be easily reproduced with current robotic technology. The rotopod mechanism [6,7] consists of three legs arranged in a tripod fashion. Each leg has a single translational degree of freedom. A single rotating joint is mounted at the apex of the legs, rotating parallel to the ground plane. The joint continuously rotates a reaction mass mounted at the end of a lever (see Fig. 1). By retracting the legs in turn, the rotating reaction mass can be used to swing the platform around each of the retracted legs. This robot has the advantage of legged locomotion in stepping its 1-DOF legs over objects, but its drive mechanism is a rotating reaction mass that rotates the robot, in a controllable fashion, around each of its legs, similar to a rotating wheel. The mechanism has the potential to transfer the energy from the rotating reaction mass in an efficient manner to the legs, effecting a spinning forward motion. Such a device could have applications as a small fast-moving and extremely agile mobile sensor platform. A large quantity of small versions of this mechanism could be dropped to map and explore an area, or larger versions could be used as for unmanned forward reconnaissance.In [6] we have described the rotopod mechanism and how it can be moved purposefully. [7] builds on this to look at a selection of gaits for the mechanism and introduces a simple power model. In this paper, after a brief review of the mechanism and the method of stepping, we present a taxonomy of gaits for the rotopod, and outline an approach to trajectory generation that takes advantage of the strengths of the unique platform. We conclude with some simulation results for trajectory generation.

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“…Therefore, many different legged-robot prototypes have been built in order to find the best efficient and stable gaits during the past years because of its high efficiency, low energy consumption and better stability on unstructured tough terrains. For example, a simple but efficient leg-wheeled locomotion developed based on the traditional wheel structure offers good passing ability for robots [14][15][16]; walking locomotion inspired from mammals provides robots low energy consumption and better moving stability on tough terrains despite a complex controlling strategy and kinematic complication [17][18][19][20][21]; novel jumping robots inspired from kangaroo [22] and fleas [23,24] are also developed and proves the feasibility of using jumping as the primary moving mode for robots.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Jumping Like an Insect: From Biomimetic Inspiration to a Jumping Minirobot Design

Liu

et al. 2012

Microsystems

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Locomotion is a key issue for autonomous robots, moreover if we consider gait efficiency in exploration and monitoring application. Despite the implicit mechanical and kinematic complication, legged locomotion is often preferred to the simpler wheeled version in unstructured environment, e.g., difficult terrains. Focusing on microrobot, lessons from nature often provide us a good insight of profitable solutions and suggest bioinspired design for small legged robots.

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A miniature hybrid robot propelled by legs

Cited by 24 publications

References 10 publications

A Prototype of Underwater Microrobot System with An Artificial Swim Bladder

A Prototype of Underwater Microrobot System with An Artificial Swim Bladder

Analysis of gaits for a rotating tripedal robot

Jumping Like an Insect: From Biomimetic Inspiration to a Jumping Minirobot Design

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