Locomotion mechanism of a novel resonant microrobot

Microrobots have lots of practical applications, in such fields as handling and assembly of micro electro mechanical system (MEMS), bio-engineering, and optical engineering. However, traditional locomotion mechanisms cannot meet the requirements of these special tasks. Hence, a novel micro locomotion mechanism was presented. A resonant leg was designed based on spilt design method and its dynamic model was developed. Based on the dynamic model, the driving principle of the mechanism was analyzed. Analysis results show that the linear relationship between time and the integral of the friction force generated by impact against ground is the reason why the atactic vibration of the resonant leg in micro-scale has steady driving effect in macro-scale. Experimental results show that the prototype achieves a driving velocity of 374 mm/s and a resolution of 1.24 μm with the operating voltage of 10 V. The locomotion mechanism which has a high driving velocity with a high resolution can greatly improve the driving performance of the micro mobile robots.