Wu Chuang, Yan Huan, Cai Anjiang, Cao Chongjing
School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi'an 710055, China.
Research Centre for Medical Robotics and Minimally Invasive Surgical Devices, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China.
Micromachines (Basel). 2022 Oct 2;13(10):1660. doi: 10.3390/mi13101660.
Over the last decade, many bio-inspired crawling robots have been proposed by adopting the principle of two-anchor crawling or anisotropic friction-based vibrational crawling. However, these robots are complicated in structure and vulnerable to contamination, which seriously limits their practical application. Therefore, a novel vibro-impact crawling robot driven by a dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) is proposed in this paper, which attempts to address the limitations of the existing crawling robots. The novelty of the proposed vibro-impact robot lies in the elimination of anchoring mechanisms or tilted bristles in conventional crawling robots, hence reducing the complexity of manufacturing and improving adaptability. A comprehensive experimental approach was adopted to characterize the performance of the robot. First, the dynamic response of the DEA-impact constraint system was characterized in experiments. Second, the performance of the robot was extensively studied and the fundamental mechanisms of the vibro-impact crawling locomotion were analyzed. In addition, effects of several key parameters on the robot's velocity were investigated. It is demonstrated that our robot can realize bidirectional motion (both forward and backward) by simple tuning of the key control parameters. The robot demonstrates a maximum forward velocity of 21.4 mm/s (equivalent to 0.71 body-length/s), a backward velocity of 16.9 mm/s, and a load carrying capacity of 9.5 g (equivalent to its own weight). The outcomes of this paper can offer guidelines for high-performance crawling robot designs, and have potential applications in industrial pipeline inspections, capsule endoscopes, and disaster rescues.
在过去十年中，人们通过采用双锚爬行原理或基于各向异性摩擦的振动爬行原理，提出了许多受生物启发的爬行机器人。然而，这些机器人结构复杂且易受污染，这严重限制了它们的实际应用。因此，本文提出了一种由介电弹性体致动器（DEA）驱动的新型振动冲击式爬行机器人，试图解决现有爬行机器人的局限性。所提出的振动冲击式机器人的新颖之处在于消除了传统爬行机器人中的锚固机构或倾斜刚毛，从而降低了制造复杂性并提高了适应性。采用了一种全面的实验方法来表征机器人的性能。首先，在实验中表征了DEA-冲击约束系统的动态响应。其次，对机器人的性能进行了广泛研究，并分析了振动冲击式爬行运动的基本机制。此外，研究了几个关键参数对机器人速度的影响。结果表明，通过简单调整关键控制参数，我们的机器人可以实现双向运动（前进和后退）。该机器人的最大前进速度为21.4毫米/秒（相当于0.71体长/秒），后退速度为16.9毫米/秒，负载能力为9.5克（相当于其自身重量）。本文的成果可为高性能爬行机器人的设计提供指导，并在工业管道检测、胶囊内窥镜和灾难救援等方面具有潜在应用。
