Research On A New Type Of Wheel-Legged Micro-Robot

Micro-robots are an important branch of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems(MEMS),which have received extensive attention for their robustness,high flexibility,and diverse motion modes.Because of its small size,it can move flexibly in a limited space beyond the reach of human beings and macro-robots,and it can also complete the work of pipeline exploration and water quality inspection in narrow waters area.Legged robots have excellent ability to overcome obstacles,but they also have problems such as slow movement speed,low energy utilization efficiency,complicated control procedures,and poor reliability;wheeled robots can move at high speed and smoothly on a flat and continuous surface,but this type of robot has poor ability to overcome obstacles and weak terrain adaptability,making it difficult to adapt to complex environments.Wheel-legged robots have the advantages of good stability of wheeled robots and strong ability of overcoming obstacles of legged robots.Its unique structure has wheeled legs with simple structure,and there is no conversion between wheels and legs.This topic proposes a single-driving wheel-legged micro-robot made of intelligent composite materials.First,analyze the structure and working principle of the micro-robot;then use the smart composite micro-structure(SCM)process,and use high-strength,low-density composite carbon fiber laminate to make the rigid parts of the micro-robot.The wheel legs were made of carbon fiber/resin composite materials by injection molding process,a wheel-legged micro-robot was fabricated after assembly and debugging.The length of the micro-robot was measured to be 4.5cm,the width was 2.4cm,and the weight was about 3.87 g.Finally,micro-robot has carried out thrust performance tests and motion performance tests.The motion performance tests specifically include: crawling on a flat surface,crawling on a rough surface,crawling with a payload,and crawling on an inclined surface.Compared with traditional wheeled or legged robots,the new wheel-legged micro-robot produced in this topic is first of all simple in structure and does not need to convert between wheels and legs.At the same time,it has the advantages of good stability of wheeled robots and strong ability of overcoming obstacles of legged robots;secondly,the micro-robot made of intelligent composite materials has significant advantages in terms of high efficiency,lightness and compact structure compared with the robot made of traditional materials;finally the micro-robot has its own unique movement mode,which is useful for people to study robots The related theories of motion have reference significance and can be used to design and manufacture various micro-robots.