Engineering news
Researchers at Disney Research have built a hopping robot that does not require a connection to an external motor or power source.
The researchers have developed a lightweight robot, weighing less than 2.3kg and about 30.5cm in height. As of now, the robot can maintain its balance for approximately seven seconds, or 19 hops, but the researchers are aiming for an increase in on-board computing power that could keep it upright for longer.
To achieve the high-speed, high-force actuation necessary to make the robot hop using electrical power, the researchers designed a Linear Elastic Actuator in Parallel (LEAP) to serve as the leg. The LEAP uses a voice coil actuator, an actuator that operates in the same manner as a loudspeaker driver - paired with two compression springs.
The leg is connected to a torso that contains battery power, sensors and other electronics. To keep this upper torso level during hopping, the angle of the leg is adjusted at each hop using two standard servo motors. The torso is only twice as heavy as the leg, whereas most hoppers have torsos that are much heavier in relation to the leg, which helps them achieve dynamic balance.
One-legged hopping robots have long been used to study balance issues, but their dependence on off-board power has kept them bound to the lab.
Joohyung Kim, associate research scientist at Disney Research, commented that though one-legged robots can only move by hopping, freeing them of cords would open up new, non-research uses. The leg modules can also be combined to create multi-legged robots.
The researchers will present their cordless hopper at the International Symposium of Experimental Robotics 2016 on 3-6 October in Tokyo, Japan.