Design, modeling and experiment of a miniature biped piezoelectric robot

Abstract

A novel miniature biped piezoelectric robot (MBPR) was designed with a patch-type beam structure. The robot utilizes an asymmetric friction-inertial driving principle to realize linear motion. The prominent feature is that it can move linearly under low frequency and low voltage, which is beneficial for untethered driving of the robot. In addition, the robot has the advantages of simple structure, convenience for multi-degree-of-freedom extension and strong load capacity. The effect of different dimensional parameters on the motion of the MBPR was studied and a prototype was fabricated, whose size was 39×15×4mm3 and weighed 0.9g. The MBPR achieved a maximum speed of 0.4 body length per second (BL/s). To expand the motion degree of freedom, an array of MBPR was fabricated and tested. The results indicated that the robot array realized linear motion of 1.3mm/s and rotation motion of 1.6°/s. The array could carry a load of 25g (13.8 times self-weight), which shows strong load capacity based on its lightweight structure. Finally, we designed a robot consisted of the array and an untethered power supply, 2-DOF untethered motion could be realized on the plane, which was conducive to finish large-scale movement and tasks in narrow environments.

Developments and Challenges of Miniature Piezoelectric Robots: A Review

“…Reproduced with permission. [ 297 ] Copyright 2022, IOP Publishing; iii) an untethered MPR powered by wireless power delivery. Reproduced with permission.…”

“…Unlike the traditional miniature robots driven by electromagnetic motors, which usually utilize simple DC (direct current) or PWM (pulse width modulation) signals, [ 289 , 290 ] the power supplies for MPRs need to be specially designed to generate the required exciting signals, mainly including the ramp signal for the direct driving type MPRs, the improved trapezoidal signal for the stepping driving type MPRs, the sawtooth signal for the inertial driving type MPRs, and the sine signal for the resonant type MPRs [ 291 , 292 , 293 ] ; in addition, most of the exciting signals are need to be boosted to reach the voltage amplitude required by the piezoelectric actuating element. [ 294 , 295 ] For example, Mu et al [ 296 ] proposed an untethered resonant type MPR with size of 20 × 20 × 10 mm 3 and weight of 1.815 g, as shown in i) of Figure 13a ; the integrated power supply could output a square wave signal with a frequency of 30 Hz and voltage up to 240 V, and could power the robot to achieve a maximum speed of 20 mm −1 s. Wang et al [ 297 ] presented an inertial impact type MPR with an onboard power supply, as shown in ii) of Figure 13a ; the power supply was limited with size of 35 × 28 × 56 mm 3 and weight of 10.1 g, and could generate a sawtooth signal with frequency bandwidth from 0 to 1 kHz and voltage range from 0 to 30 V to power the robot. Besides, wireless power delivery is another effective method for MPRs to overcome the limitations of the wire traction problem.…”

“…; ii) an inertial impact type MPR with an onboard power supply. Reproduced with permission [297]. Copyright 2022, IOP Publishing; iii) an untethered MPR powered by wireless power delivery.…”

Research on Bandwidth Improvement of Fine Tracking Control System in Space Laser Communication

“…Piezoelectric actuators have several advantages, including their small size, light weight, strong driving force, low noise, nanometer-level resolution, ultra-high repeatable positioning accuracy, and excellent dynamic characteristics. As a result, they find wide application in fields such as precision manufacturing [6], biomedicine [7], ultra-precision micro-and nano-processing [8,9], aerospace [10], robotics [11], and precision optics [12]. PZT FSM offers advantages such as fast response speed, high pointing accuracy, a high resonant frequency, and strong resistance to electromagnetic interference.…”

Fast‐Moving and Highly Adaptable Hollow Piezoelectric Miniature Robot

“…In this way, miniature robots have been developed to utilize smart materials as drive sources, representative of which include dielectric elastomers, [15,16] shape memory alloys, [17,18] magnetostrictive materials, [19,20] and piezoelectric materials. [21,22] The first three types of robots, however, have issues with complicated manufacturing procedures, poor motion stability, and the requirement for high-power loading devices, respectively. Piezoelectric robots are a reasonably wellperforming type of miniature robots due to their benefits of simple structure, fast response, and high resolution.…”