Motion of a miniature robot driven by rapid deformation of piezoelectric element

Many miniature robots with various types of actuators have been developed. In this paper, a motion of a miniature robot driven by rapid deformation of piezoelectric elements is described. This miniature robot consists of a stainless frame and three piezoelectric elements. One piezoelectric element expands and another is contracted rapidly and simultaneously. First the linear displacement of the miniature robot is described. We measured the linear displacement of the miniature robot. The robot moves forward and the linear displacement in one control cycle is 2.99 /spl mu/m. Then, the rotational displacement of the robot is also described. We repeated the rotational displacement measurement on a lot of different places on a flat glass surface. The result obtained by the same input signals and different positions of the robot are different from each other. One of our results indicates that the rotational displacement is 15.6 /spl mu/rad in CW direction and 8.8 /spl mu/rad in CCW direction when the extension of piezoelectric elements is 3 /spl mu/m.