A novel wireless and mobile piezoelectric micro robot

Abstract

In this paper, a novel wireless and mobile piezoelectric micro robot has been presented. The dimensions of the robot are within several centimeters (such as 7.5cm x 6.5cm x 7.5cm) and the weight is approximate a hundred gram, including the drive and control circuits, the main structure, the piezoelectric beams and the batteries. In contrast to existing mobile micro robots, the actuating mechanism of the proposed robot is piezoelectric bimorph beams, and the driving principle is the piezo-based vibromotor technique with vibration wave (traveling-wave) as drive source to actuate the robot. Since the robot is wireless, the challenge subject of the research is how to minimize the drive and control circuits with high voltage supply (up to 50V) based on battery voltage alone. The robot has speed up to 14 mm/s in 50V and with a frequency of 75Hz on a polished steel surface without extra loading. The robot can bear approximate 96g extra loading.

Construction of Wireless Piezoelectric Micro Robots with Arduino Control Module

“…The speed is measured by timer and ruler. According to previous researches [8,9], the material, the geometry of the frame body and the gap distance between two piezoelectric beams are significant to affect the performance of the robot. In addition, different ground surfaces (material, roughness or hardness) affect the speed of the robot.…”

“…Different actuators have been adopted for micro robots, such as electromagnetic, pneumatic, electrostatic, shape-memory alloy and piezoelectric actuators. Recently, the piezo-based vibromotor technique with traveling-wave or standing-wave as drive source to actuate the robots has been proposed [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. Over the years Arduino [10] has been the brain of thousands of projects, from everyday objects to complex scientific instruments.…”

“…Because it is so flexible and open source, Arduino is the best solution if we are interested in creating interactive objects or environments. Therefore, in this paper, based on our previous researches [8,9], wireless piezoelectric micro robots integrated with the Arduino controller module have been presented. The construction of the robot is included with the frame body, the PZT piezoelectric beams, the miniaturized voltage amplifier-piezo driver, the HC06 Bluetooth module, the micro sensors (HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor and photo sensitive resistor) and the Arduino controller (Arduino nano or Rfduion-Simblee).…”

“…For further application, the robots can be integrated with micro sensors such as the HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor and the photo sensitive resistor to be interactive with environment. Figure 1 illustrates the schematic diagram of the construction and operation principle for the mobile piezoelectric micro robot [8,9]. The driving principle is the piezo-based traveling-wave method, which applies pulse voltage to excite piezoelectric bimorph beams, and the vibration of the beams causes the frame body to generate surface waves (travelingwave) on the bottom plate of the frame body.…”

“…Figure 2 shows four phases of the operations for the robot in motion: the synchronized vibration of the two beams makes the robot move back and forth by adjusting the input pulse signals (frequency) to the piezo-beams, and if only one of beams vibrating, the robot rotates counter clockwise or clockwise, respectively. Figure 3 shows the micro robots: wired or wireless, presented by our previous researches [8,9]. The wireless robot is controlled by Infrared remote control made by ourselves but without integrated with any Arduino controller or Bluetooth module or sensor.…”