Modeling Legged Microrobot Locomotion Based on Contact Dynamics and Vibration in Multiple Modes and Axes

Abstract

A dynamic model is developed for small-scale robots with multiple high-frequency actuated compliant elastic legs and a rigid body. The motion of the small-scale robots results from dual-direction motion of piezoelectric actuators attached to the legs, with impact dynamics increasing robot locomotion complexity. A dynamic model is developed to describe the small-scale robot motion in the presence of variable properties of the underlying terrain. The dynamic model is derived from beam theory with appropriate boundary and loading conditions and considers each robot leg as a continuous structure moving in two directions. Robot body motion is modeled in up to five degrees-of-freedom (DOF) using a rigid body approximation for the central robot chassis. Individual modes of the resulting multimode robot are treated as second-order linear systems. The dynamic model is tested with two different centimeter-scale robot prototypes having an analogous actuation scheme to millimeter-scale microrobots. In accounting for the interaction between the robot and ground, a dynamic model using the first two modes of each leg shows good agreement with experimental results for the centimeter-scale prototypes, in terms of both magnitude and the trends in robot locomotion with respect to actuation conditions.