Software Design of the Stiquito Micro Robot

Abstract

The Stiquito robot is a small, six legged robot that walks by utilizing a special material called Flexinol. Flexinol acts as a muscle for each of the legs, providing a means of walking for the robot. Stiquito was originally designed as a manually controlled device, where the operator would manually control the six legs in sets of three. A self-controlled version of the Stiquito was later developed This version provides more versatility in possible applications by allowing it to travel alone, without being tethered to an operator. This self-controlled version of the Stiquito robot uses a microprocessor to coordinate the operation of the legs to produce a forward motion. To accomplish this, an algorithm and resulting software must be developed to satisfy several operating requirements. This paper discusses these requirements and the development of the C/C++ software designed to implement them.