Design and Experimental Results of A Tripodic Biomimetic Microrobot with 5 DOFs

In this paper, to realize an efficient locomotion in submarine environment, we designed a mechanical structure, inspired by the leg of stick insects. The structure of a biomimetic leg is made of two pieces of ICPF (ionic conducting polymer film) actuators. A microrobot with three units of the legs has been designed and carried out. We have analyzed the three kinds of motions, the walking, floating and swimming motions. The microrobot can realize a 2 DOFs motion on underwater surface and a 5 DOFs motions in submarine theoretically. We have measured the speeds of the walking motion with different control signals. And results indicate that this kind of locomotion method has a good speed performance and localization in aquatic environment. In our experimental results, the kinematic data indicates that it can arrive at a speed of 2.4mm/s with a control signal of 6Hz and 5V. The experiment of floating motion has also been done. The result shows that the microrobot could float upward and suspend in water by changing the frequency. An underwater microrobot with this kind of locomotion has powerful application in medical and naval fields