Miniature walking robot with soft joints and links

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2020039590-A1
Application number	US-201916530420-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Aug 2, 2019
Priority date	Aug 2, 2018
Publication date	Feb 6, 2020
Grant date	—

Abstract

Disclosed is multimaterial 3D printing (MM3P) to fabricate centimeter-scale robots by utilizing soft materials to create soft joints to replace revolute joints and also soft links to replace rigid links. A three-spring rotational-prismatic rotational (RPR) model is developed to approximate the motion of soft joints or links, which is further utilized to numerically predict the motion of the leg mechanism with multiple soft joints and links. The accuracy of the proposed numerical method is validated with experimental results. A functional walking robot actuated by a single DC motor is demonstrated.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A robot, comprising:
a drive train; four legs; four drive links, each drive link respectively coupling a respective leg to the drive train; and a gear motor coupled to the drive train; the legs and the links being formed by 3D printing to be a unitary structure.

2 . The robot of claim 1 , wherein the unitary structure comprises materials of two different tensile strengths.

3 . The robot of claim 1 , wherein the drive links comprise a soft material of a different tensile strength that the material forming the legs.

4 . The robot of claim 1 , wherein the legs comprise soft joints of a material having a different tensile strength than the material forming the legs.

5 . The robot of claim 1 , wherein each leg comprises at least one revolute joints.

6 . The robot of claim 1 , wherein each leg comprises a plurality of revolute joints.

7 . The robot of claim 1 , further comprising an actuator for driving each of the four legs.

8 . The robot of claim 1 , wherein the drive train includes 6 gears for transferring power to all legs.

9 . The robot of claim 1 , wherein the phase of legs is offset based on four-legged motion.

10 . The robot of claim 1 , wherein each drive link is offset by 90 degrees from the other links.

11 . The robot of claim 1 , where drive links are offset such that when a first drive link of a first leg is at −90 degrees from horizontal, a second drive link for a second leg is at +90 degrees from horizontal, a third drive link of a third leg is at 0 degrees from horizontal and a fourth drive link for a fourth leg is at +180 degrees from horizontal.

12 . The robot of claim 1 , further comprising a body having assembly holes corresponding to therethrough allowing for a pin to pass therethrough to couple one of the legs to one of the drive links.

Assignees

• Univ Colorado State Res Found

Inventors

• Zhao Jianguo
• Demario Anthony Robert

Classifications

• B33Y80/00

  Products made by additive manufacturing · CPC title

• B62D57/032 Primary

  with alternately or sequentially lifted supporting base and legs; with alternately or sequentially lifted feet or skid (B62D57/024 takes precedence) · CPC title

• F16H1/00

  Toothed gearings for conveying rotary motion (specific for conveying rotary motion with variable gear ratio or for reversing rotary motion F16H3/00) · CPC title

• B25J9/1605

  Simulation of manipulator lay-out, design, modelling of manipulator · CPC title

• B25J9/109

  comprising mechanical programming means, e.g. cams · CPC title