Development of the sub-10 cm, sub-100 g jumping–crawling robot

Abstract

The accessible environment and locomotion performance of a robot are governed by the scale of the robot. The operating time and speed can be increased as the scale of the robot increases. However, the size of the robot does limit the accessible environment: the robot cannot pass through a space smaller than its size. Therefore, to explore an environment containing gaps, holes, and crevices, a small-scale robot is required. In this paper, we propose a sub-10 cm, sub-100 g scale jumping–crawling robot. The proposed robot consists of crawling, jumping, and self-righting mechanisms. The combination of crawling and jumping allowed the robot to overcome obstacles of various sizes. To reduce the weight and size of the robot, we employed a smart composite microstructures (SCM) design method and utilized a shape memory alloy (SMA) actuator. All the mechanisms and electronic components were compactly integrated into a single robot. The robot can crawl with the maximum speed of 3.94 cm/s (0.4 BL/s), and jump 19 cm which is 2.2 times its body height.