Thin Piezoelectric Mobile Robot Using Curved Tail Oscillation

In this paper, a novel piezoelectric material-based soft mobile robot is proposed. The robot consists of a thin film body and a soft polyvinylidene fluoride-based tail. The tail has a unique structure that is a combination of a polyethylene terephthalate fin and a curved piezoelectric film. We experimentally demonstrated the performance of a mobile robot. In particular, the resonance frequency was investigated to maximize tail movement. In addition, a parameter study of the tail shape was performed. Moreover, the repeatability of movements was tested. By using a curved piezoelectric tail with a fin, we built a mobile robot with a thin and flexible body. Furthermore, we fabricated multiple mobile robots by varying the robot configuration and analyzing their mobility. We found that our novel curved tail structure has good mobility performance at low body weights and multi-tailed conditions.