NanoRunner: a very small wireless robot with three piezoactuated legs suited for design experimentations and validations through preprogrammed behaviors

Abstract

The NanoRunner is designed to be primarily used as an experimental wireless robot in order ot quickly test and validate several hardware/software issues and ideas prior to being implemented on the more expensive and complex wireless instrumented NanoWalker robot. As such, the NanoRunner, Like the NanoWalker is based on three piezo- actuated legs forming a pyramid with the apex pointing upward. Unlike the NanoWlaker, the NanoRunner has much simpler embedded electronics and is not capable of an accuracy and computational throughput comparable to the NanoWalker. Because of its lighter weight, it can move or run much faster. Furthermore, the NanoRunner does not have a fast infrared communication infrastructure for downloading executable code. Instead the NanoRunner is first pre-programmed with a specific behavior suitable for the tasks to be performed. Nonetheless, the NanoRunner has all the required electronics to be fully autonomous while performing its experimentation tasks. Although not as sophisticated as the NanoWalker, the NanoRunner offers a smaller and simpler robot implementation for less demanding tasks. Another major motivation for the NanoRunner is to validate various ideas in order to decrease the overall size of the robot. The size is critical since our goal is to allow more robots to work within the same area. In this paper, the NanoRunner is described. Aspects such as construction, assembly, and the method used for downloading executable code in order to pre-program the robot's behavior are also covered.