Abstract
The click beetle can jump up with a hinge when it is on the dorsal side. This jumping mechanism is simple and suitable as an inspiration for designing a simple, small, and reliable hopping robot. We report a single-legged robot inspired by the jumping mechanism of click beetles. It is 85 mm high, 60 mm long, and 41 mm wide, and weighs about 49 g. The robot has good hopping performance that the hopping height is about 4 times – 4.3 times of its body height. It is capable for rescue missions that require to enter enclosed spaces through cracks and narrow channels. In addition, hopping dynamics of the robot is important to understand its jumping mechanism and improve the robot’s hopping performance. But existing dynamic study does not complete the analysis including all stages in the hopping which are pre-hopping, take-off, and air-flying. We propose the decomposition method to study dynamics of the three stages separately, and synthesize them with related parameters. The dynamic synthesis of multi-motion states in a hopping cycle of the single-legged hopping robot is implemented. The hopping performance and dynamic synthesis theory of the robot are verified by simulations and experiments. Our study helps lay the foundation for design and hopping control of simple hopping robot systems.
Highlights
Legged robots can access the complex terrain environments that cannot be accessed by wheeled mobile robots[1,2]
The single-legged hopping robot driven with different angular velocities is simulated in ADAMS
Inspired by the jumping mechanism of click beetles, a simple, small, and reliable hopping robot with a single leg was developed through the meshing and disengagement of the gear set combined with torsional spring for storing and releasing the energy
Summary
Legged robots can access the complex terrain environments that cannot be accessed by wheeled mobile robots[1,2]. A legged hopping robot has a simple, small, and reliable mechanical structure and good dynamic acceleration performance. It can play an important role on uneven terrains and handle obstacles[3,4]. Many researchers have studied the legged hopping robots[8,9,10]. Vu et al studied a two-segmented leg with a knee and hip joints that implemented hopping movement using the variable stiffness mechanism[11]. Zhang et al built a two-wheeled hopping robot with a four-bar linkage[12]. The four-bar linkages are light weight and have high jumping efficiency
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