Micromachine technology puts legs on tiny robot
Micromachine technology puts legs on tiny robot
Keywords: Robots, Micromachining
A research team at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), Japan's leading industrial-type heavy equipment making company, has used micromachine expertise to develop a tiny robot that can transform itself like an amoeba in order to climb over obstacles put in its path. Featuring a structure that comprises discrete spherical units joined horizontally, the robot can climb up and down stairs in a wave-like motion and even stand like a spider with the end portions of the mobile structure acting as legs.
MHI hopes to equip the robot with a video camera or supersonic sensor and develop a commercially viable product that can be used for a variety of purposes, such as checking pipes at nuclear power stations. Each ball-shaped unit is 4cm in diameter and weighs 80 grammes. A total of 18 units make up the whole structure, which is 85cm long and 35cm wide, and weighs 6.3kgs.
The robot is controlled by computers via a cable link, and the computers issue instructions on movement and the shape it should take, according to signals sent from a built-in contact sensor. Each spherical unit is rotated by an ultrasonic motor with power supplied by cable. The robot can move on flat surfaces at 2cm a minute and over stairs at the same speed if they are less than 4cm in height. The MHI team said that computer simulations show that the robot can move at a maximum speed of 20cm per minute, and climb stairs that are up to 12cm high. Management plans to improve the speed of this unit.
Conventional industrial robots require a large number of connection cables to exchange signals with control computers. Researchers have managed to cut the number to 15 by incorporating part of the circuits for drive control and communications in each spherical unit using micromachine technology. Reducing the number of cables saves substantially on energy consumption. MHI explains the robot was designed as part of a micromachine technology development project under the aegis of the government's Ministry of International Trade and Industry, the MITI.
