Autonomous jumping microrobots
Autonomous jumping microrobots
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自主跳跃微型机器人
DOI：
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发表时间：
2007
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
S. Bergbreiter
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
K. Pister;S. Bergbreiter
设计了一种自主跳跃微型机器人，并制作了其机械部件，进行了测试。毫米级自主移动的微型机器人在移动的传感器网络以及搜索和探索任务中具有潜在的应用。然而，由于崎岖的表面、障碍物和运动效率，这种规模的移动是困难的。跳跃已经被提出作为克服这些挑战的运动方法。
微型机器人设计分为四个部分：能量存储，高工作密度执行器，电源和控制。就像它的生物灵感跳蚤一样，跳跃的微型机器人需要一个能量存储机制来存储能量并快速释放能量以跳跃。小腿长度小需要大的加速度来达到所需的起飞速度跳10厘米。硅微型橡皮筋已经制造出来，并被证明可以储存和快速释放足够的能量，让一个10毫克的机器人直接跳上17厘米。
为了拉伸这些微型橡皮筋，静电尺蠖电机已被设计和制造，以提供低输入功率要求的高力和大位移。三个关键的设计创新已被用于提高这些电机设计的力密度比以前的努力37倍。首先，预偏置致动器将初始静电间隙减小到光刻极限以下。第二，无齿，摩擦离合器允许可变的停止大小和单驱动致动器电机。第三，添加了氮化硅，以减少电机磨损。使用这三个新功能的初始电机设计已经制造和测试。
最后，已经建立了几个原型来集成和测试这四个机器人组件。一个小规模版本的完整的机器人与以前制造的太阳能电池和一个现成的微控制器驱动一个小尺蠖电机已被证明。另外，一个尺蠖电机已被用来储存能量在一个微型橡胶带快速释放。希望在这项工作中提出的许多设计和制造想法可以用来使自主移动的微型机器人成为现实。
An autonomous jumping microrobot has been designed, and its mechanical components have been fabricated and tested. Millimeter-scale autonomous mobile microrobots have potential applications in mobile sensor networks as well as search and exploration tasks. However, mobility is difficult at this scale due to rugged surfaces, obstacles and locomotion efficiency. Jumping has been proposed as a locomotion method to overcome these challenges.
The microrobot design has been divided into four components: energy storage, high work density actuators, power, and control. Like its biological inspiration, the flea, a jumping microrobot requires an energy storage mechanism to store energy and release it quickly to jump. Small leg lengths require large accelerations to reach takeoff velocities required to jump 10s of cm. Silicone micro rubber bands have been fabricated and demonstrated to store and quickly release enough energy for a 10 mg robot to jump 17 cm straight up.
To stretch these micro rubber bands, electrostatic inchworm motors have been designed and fabricated to provide high forces and large displacements with low input power requirements. Three key design innovations have been used to improve the force density of these motor designs 37x over previous efforts. First, a pre-biasing actuator reduces initial electrostatic gaps below lithographic limits. Second, a toothless, friction-based clutch allows for variable stop sizes and single drive actuator motors. Third, silicon nitride has been added to reduce motor sire. Initial motor designs using these three new features have been fabricated and tested.
Finally, several prototypes have been built to integrate and test the four robot components. A small-scale version of the full robot with previously fabricated solar cells and an off-the-shelf microcontroller driving a small inchworm motor has been demonstrated. Separately, an inchworm motor has been used to store energy in a micro rubber band for quick release. It is hoped that many of the design and fabrication ideas presented in this work can be used to make autonomous mobile microrobots a reality.