無線マイクロマシンにおける小型低消費電力システム制御回路

Abstract

We have developed a compact and low power consumed control circuit for a wireless in-pipe inspection micromachine. The micromachine consists of a CCD camera, a locomotive device, a system control circuit and wireless energy supply and communication devices, and moves in a 10mm diameter pipe without wire and observes the inner surface of the pipe using the installed CCD camera. The developed control circuit controls all installed devices in the micromachine by commands from outside and transmits the image data from the CCD camera. As for the control circuit, the power consumption and the size are greatly restricted in order to be installed in the micromachine. In order to reduce the size of the circuit, we have newly developed an image data communication LSI based on a new architecture. The LSI has the size of 3.9mm by 3.9mm and the power consumption of 45mW. To make the control circuit compact, we used a flip chip assembly for the LSI and eight more ICs in the system. Through a fabricated prototype of the micromachine, we have successfully confirmed the wireless in-pipe locomotion and wireless image data communication of 2.25 frames per second.