Design and demonstration of a bio-inspired flapping-wing-assisted jumping robot

Abstract

Jumping insects such as fleas, froghoppers, grasshoppers, and locusts take off from the ground using a catapult mechanism to push their legs against the surface of the ground while using their pairs of flapping wings to propel them into the air. Such combination of jumping and flapping is expected as an efficient way to overcome unspecified terrain or avoid large obstacles. In this work, we present the conceptual design and verification of a bio-inspired flapping-wing-assisted jumping robot, named Jump-flapper, which mimics jumping insects' locomotion strategy. The robot, which is powered by only one miniature DC motor to implement the functions of jumping and flapping, is an integration of an inverted slider-crank mechanism for the structure of the legs, a dog-clutch mechanism for the winching system, and a rack-pinion mechanism for the flapping-wing system. A prototype of the robot is fabricated and experimentally tested to evaluate the integration and performance of the Jump-flapper. This 23 g robot with assisted flapping wings operating at approximately 19 Hz is capable of jumping to a height of approximately 0.9 m, showing about 30% improvement in the jumping height compared to that of the robot without assistance of the flapping wings. The benefits of the flapping-wing-assisted jumping system are also discussed throughout the study.

Optimal leap angle of legged and legless insects in a landscape of uniformly distributed random obstacles

“…A bio-mimetic approach suggests that jumping has a great potentiality of success [26][27][28] in rough terrains. In fact, in recent years a large amount of research has focused on the refinement of miniaturized robots inspired by jumping organisms, like, for example, froghoppers [29], locusts [30], insects [27,31,32] or even soft worms [33,34]. The final choices made in the design of a jumping robot result from a complex balance among constraints connected to take-off, air flight and landing.…”

Study of a new water jet thruster for robotic returnable jumping

“…has the highest normalized payload (9.97 J/kg); the normalized payloads of water jet thruster’s outer chamber and inner chamber are slightly lower than that of the hopping actuator in Ref. 1 Although some jumping robots have low normalized payloads, their still have other important advantages, such as gliding flight, 33 flapping by wings 31 and attitude adjustment in the air, 32 which are not taken into consideration in the performance comparison.…”

Study of Mosquito Aerodynamics for Imitation as a Small Robot and Flight in a Low-Density Environment

“…By detecting nearby obstacles during flight, the model system successfully emulated the mosquito model’s behavior [ 166 ]. Insects typically take-off from the ground using a catapult technique to impel legs against the ground surface while propelling them into the air using their pairs of flapping wings [ 167 ]. Although mosquitoes use a slightly different technique, such as flapping their wings before jumping, this combination is an effective way to get rid-off unspecified terrain or steer clear of enormous obstacles, and even the host will not detect them.…”