Piezo-driven Micro Robots for Different Environments: Prototypes and Experiments

We report recent efforts in the design and construction of micro robots for the two-dimensional locomotion in different environments. Amphibious robots are presented, which can perform locomotion on smooth terrain as well as on the free surface of liquids. The working principle of this kind of robots deploys forced vibration of continua, which are excited by a single piezoelectric actuator with frequencies in range of 0.1 - 100 kHz. The direction of motion can be controlled by the excitation frequency of the actuation element using resonance effects. A computational model and simulations are given to describe this dependency. The design and motion principle of prototypes are described and experimental results are given. Furthermore, the maximum mass of an amphibious robot is calculated for a set of parameters.