A wirelessly powered, biologically inspired ambulatory microrobot

Abstract

Abstract-Onboard power remains a major challenge for miniature robotic platforms. Locomotion at small scales demands high power densities from all system components, while limited payload capacities place severe restrictions on the size of the energy source, resulting in integration challenges and short operating times when using conventional batteries. Wireless power delivery has the potential to allow microrobotic platforms to operate autonomously for extended periods when near a transmitter. This paper describes the first demonstration of RF wireless power transfer in an insect-scale ambulatory robot. A wireless power transmission system based on magnetically coupled resonance is designed for the latest iteration of the Harvard Ambulatory MicroRobot (HAMR), a piezoelectrically driven quadruped that had previously received power through a tether. Custom power and control electronics are designed and implemented on lightweight printed circuit boards that form a part of the mechanical structure of the robot. The integration of the onboard receiver, power and control electronics, and mechanical structure yields a 4cm, 2.1g robot that can operate autonomously in two wireless power transmission scenarios.

Perpetual Robot Swarm: Long-Term Autonomy of Mobile Robots Using On-the-fly Inductive Charging

“…the simulated pheromone [17]. Finally, researches [18][19][20] suggest to use wireless power transfer which does not suffer from the wear-and-tear of contact-based systems.…”

The Potential of 3D-MID Technology for Omnidirectional Inductive Wireless Power Transfer

“…They are light weighted, and they do not take too much space. This system can be seen as a preliminary work of future applications for the consumer market but it has also some direct applications in industrial automation (powering robots [12], mini robots [13] [14]), medical application (body and mouse monitoring [15], implants [16], RMI [17]) and also military applications.…”

Continuum Robotic Caterpillar with Wirelessly Powered Shape Memory Alloy Actuators

“…Devices in the literature are predominantly wheel-driven robots with relatively large and rigid wire-wound coils and low transmission frequencies 17 and also include ambulatory insect-type micro-robots. 18 Fully passive systems apply inductive WPT to multichannel shape memory actuators (SMA coils) using frequency multiplexing for actuated origami structure 19,20 and on a micro-scale for micro-fluidic channel actuation, 21 similar to the technique applied in this work. Although the works 19,20 are inspiring, their methods sacrifice the locomotion functionality and designers' degrees of freedom since the methods use rigid coils as the power receivers that stiffen the robot and require some flat rigid surfaces (e.g., a flat origami surface) to attach them.…”