A robotic leg inspired from an insect leg

Abstract

While most insect-inspired robots come with a simple tarsus, such as a hemispherical foot tip, insect legs have complex tarsal structures and claws, which enable them to walk on complex terrain. Their sharp claws can smoothly attach and detach on plant surfaces by actuating a single muscle. Thus, installing an insect-inspired tarsus on legged robots would improve their locomotion on complex terrain. This paper shows that the tendon-driven ball–socket structure provides the tarsus with both flexibility and rigidity, which is necessary for the beetle to walk on a complex substrate such as a mesh surface. Disabling the tarsus’ rigidity by removing the socket and elastic membrane of a tarsal joint, means that the claws could not attach to the mesh securely. Meanwhile, the beetle struggled to draw the claws out of the substrate when we turned the tarsus rigid by tubing. We then developed a cable-driven bio-inspired tarsus structure to validate the function of the tarsus as well as to show its potential application in the legged robot. With the tarsus, the robotic leg was able to attach and retract smoothly from the mesh substrate when performing a walking cycle.

Shaping the energy curves of a servomotor-based hexapod robot

“…By servomotor, we mean an enclosed compact actuator, composed of a DC motor contiguous to multiple gear stages and including position control circuits. The chosen robot design is a standard case for robots used in studies of animal's locomotion and navigation 5,[28][29][30] . We focused on relatively small hexapod robots that weigh about 2-3 kg and had a maximum body span of one meter.…”

TriTrap: A Robotic Gripper Inspired by Insect Tarsal Chains

“…Some recent examples include a mechanical adhesive gripper inspired by beetle claws and tarsi that was later employed in a climbing robot [ 20 , 21 ]; a complete walking and climbing robot called Drosiphibot modeled after the common fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster , which used passive tarsal chains as end effectors on its feet [ 22 ]; a spine-based wall climbing robot utilizing a tarsal chain inspired mount for its climbing spines [ 23 ]; a novel robotic gripper used in fruit harvesting that employs tarsal chain based end effectors to prevent fruit slipping after harvesting [ 24 ]; and another vertical climbing robot imitating the passive conformability of cockroach tarsal chains [ 25 ]. Another example would be the utilization of the tarsal chain structure and actuation principle in a very general sense in hyper-redundant manipulators for endoscopic surgery [ 26 ] or the creation of a tarsus-based robot leg for locomotion [ 27 ]. There have been efforts to utilize the tarsal chain principle to improve the performance of tree-climbing robots [ 28 ], to enhance the traversal of robots during the construction of orbital structures in space [ 29 ], to improve vertical traversal under outdoor conditions [ 30 ], to exploit characteristics of structures tied to tarsal chains, such as insect claws, to improve robotic gait on certain types of terrain [ 31 ], or in a climbing robot utilizing tracks inspired by tarsal chains [ 32 ].…”

Analysis of Structure and Function of Ladybird Leg and Subsequent Design and Fabrication of a Simplified Leg Structure for Robotic Applications

“…The study of biological leg and foot structures has great significance in the field of biomimetics, since such structures can be mimicked in a wide range of robotic applications. The structure and movement of both human and animal legs have been investigated in previous work [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 ]. Supernumerary robotic legs for human support [ 18 ] and locomotion [ 19 ] have been successfully demonstrated.…”

“…Lastly, some previous work has been performed on replicating the structure and movement of the legs of beetles specifically. Tran-Ngoc et al [ 30 ] conducted a detailed investigation of the function and movement of the leg of the adult flower beetle, ( M. torquata ), and used this knowledge to fabricate a robotic leg based closely on the studied insect. The robotic leg was able to attach and then retract smoothly from a mesh substrate.…”