Picture this: hundreds of ant-sized robots climb over rubble, under rocks and between debris to inspect the damage of a fallen building before human rescuers explore on-site.
Downscaling legged robots to the size of an insect enables access to small spaces that humans and large robots cannot reach. A swarm of small robots can even collaborate like their insect counterparts to haul objects and protect one another. Picotaur, a new robot from the labs of Sarah Bergbreiter and Aaron Johnson is the first of its size, able to run, turn, push loads and climb miniature stairs.
“This robot has legs that are driven by multiple actuators so it can achieve various locomotion capabilities,” said Sukjun Kim, a recent Ph.D. graduate advised by Bergbreiter. “With multiple gait patterns, it can walk like other hexapod robots, similar to how a cockroach moves, but it can also hop from the ground to overcome obstacles.”
The 7.9 mm robot was 3D-printed using two-photon polymerization, a process previously successful in building various small-scale robotic systems in the lab such as microbots, microgrippers, microswimmers, and microsensors. The work is published in the journal Advanced Intelligent Systems.
“Using this process, we were able to miniaturize the two degree of freedom linkage mechanism that allows Picotaur to clear step heights and easily alternate between walking and jumping,” said Bergbreiter, Professor of Mechanical Engineering.
Hellbound and Down 