Development of a controllable and continuous jumping robot

Abstract

A miniature robot with continuous jumping ability is presented in this paper. The robot has a dimension about 6cm×8cm×2cm and weighs 20 grams. To achieve continuous jumping, various mechanisms are needed including the jumping mechanism, energy store and release mechanism, self-righting mechanism, and jumping direction changing mechanism. The design and analysis for those mechanisms are elaborated in this paper. Moreover, implementation and experimental results are also presented. It is shown that the robot can jump higher than 55cm with a 75° takeoff angle. The robot can be used as mobile sensors and deployed in the areas of rugged terrain and natural obstacles which are not suitable for sensors with wheels.