Guo Qingkai, Sun Yu, Zhang Tianxiang, Xie Shiyu, Chen Xuefeng, Zhang Zhuang, Jiang Hanqing, Yang Laihao
School of Mechanical Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049, China.
School of Engineering, Westlake University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310030, China.
Adv Sci (Weinh). 2024 Sep;11(34):e2404404. doi: 10.1002/advs.202404404. Epub 2024 Jul 7.
Drawing inspiration from the jumping mechanisms of insects (e.g., click beetles), bistable structures can convert slow deformations of soft actuating material into fast jumping motions (i.e., power amplification). However, bistable jumpers often encounter large energy barriers for energy release/re-storage, posing a challenge in achieving multimodal (i.e., height/distance) and continuous jumps at the insect scale (body length under 20 mm). Here, a new offset-buckling bistable design is introduced that features antisymmetric equilibrium states and tunable energy barriers. Leveraging this design, a Boundary Actuation Tunable Energy-barrier (BATE) jumper (body length down to 15 mm) is developed, and transform BATE jumper from height-jump mode (up to 12.7 body lengths) to distance-jump mode (up to 20 body lengths). BATE jumpers can perform agile continuous jumping (within 300 ms for energy release/re-storage times) and real-time status detection is further demonstrated. This insect-level performance of the proposed BATE jumper showcases its potential toward future applications in exploration, search, and rescue.
受昆虫（如叩头虫）跳跃机制的启发，双稳态结构可将柔软驱动材料的缓慢变形转化为快速跳跃运动（即功率放大）。然而，双稳态跳跃器在能量释放/再存储时常常遇到较大的能垒，这对在昆虫尺度（体长小于20毫米）实现多模态（即高度/距离）和连续跳跃构成了挑战。在此，引入了一种新的偏置屈曲双稳态设计，其具有反对称平衡态和可调能垒。利用这种设计，开发了一种边界驱动可调能垒（BATE）跳跃器（体长低至15毫米），并将BATE跳跃器从高度跳跃模式（高达12.7倍体长）转换为距离跳跃模式（高达20倍体长）。BATE跳跃器能够进行敏捷的连续跳跃（能量释放/再存储时间在300毫秒以内），并进一步展示了实时状态检测功能。所提出的BATE跳跃器的这种昆虫级性能展示了其在未来探索、搜索和救援应用中的潜力。
