Electrostatic footpads enable agile insect-scale soft robots with trajectory control

Jiaming Liang, Yichuan Wu, Justin K. Yim, Huimin Chen, Zicong Miao, Hanxiao Liu, Ying Liu, Yixin Liu, Dongkai Wang, Wenying Qiu, Zhichun Shao, Min Zhang, Xiaohao Wang, Junwen Zhong, Liwei Lin

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Agility and trajectory control are two desirable features for robotics, but they become very challenging for soft robots without rigid structures to support rapid manipulations. Here, a curved piezoelectric thin film driven at its structural resonant frequency is used as the main body of an insect-scale soft robot for its fast translational movements, and two electrostatic footpads are used for its swift rotational motions. These two schemes are simultaneously executed during operations through a simple two-wire connection arrangement. A high relative centripetal acceleration of 28 body length per square second compared with existing robots is realized on a 65-milligram tethered prototype, which is better than those of common insects, including the cockroach. The trajectory manipulation demonstration is accomplished by navigating the robot to pass through a 120-centimeter-long track in a maze within 5.6 seconds. One potential application is presented by carrying a 180-milligram on-board sensor to record a gas concentration route map and to identify the location of the leakage source. The radically simplified analog motion adjustment technique enables the scale-up construction of a 240-milligram untethered robot. Equipped with a payload of 1660 milligrams to include the control circuit, a battery, and photoresistors, the untethered prototype can follow a designated, 27.9-centimeter-long “S”-shaped path in 36.9 seconds. These results validate key performance attributes in achieving both high mobility and agility to emulate living agile insects for the advancements of soft robots.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article numberabe7906
JournalScience Robotics
Volume6
Issue number55
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 30 2021
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Medicine

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