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| OctoRoACH
with Tail (May 2012) The 100-mm scale OctoRoACH robot can turn using differential drive at 100 degrees per second, or with a dynamic tail with peak turn rates of 400 degrees per second. Pullin et al. ICRA 2012 |
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| DASH+Wings:
Wing
Assisted Running (Oct. 2011) DASH+Wings is a small hexapedal winged robot that uses flapping wings to increase its ground locomotion capabilities. The wings increase climbing slopes and stability, but do not provide enough thrust for flight. A wing assisted running robot and implications for avian flight evolution. Bioinspiration and Bioimetics |
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Flight Control for
Target Seeking by 13 gram Ornithopter (Sept. 2011)
We demonstrate autonomous flight control of 13 gram ornithopter capable of flying toward a target without any remote assistance. For this demonstration, we have developed a closed-loop attitude regulator for the ornithopter using onboard sensing and computational resources. Movie IROS 2011 . |
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| OctoRoACH:Dual Drive
MilliRobot (Sept. 2011) The OctoRoACH robot has a mass of less than 30 grams, and includes the ImageProc CPU with gyro, accelerometer, radio and camera, is capable of locomotion in rough surfaces. Robot designed by A. Pullin. Pullin et al. ICRA 2012 |
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| GSA
Adhesive Material
Limits (Aug.
2011) HDPE and PP fibrillar arrays have shear adhesion stress (0.3 MPa) sufficient to deform the fibers. Hence the fiber material strength is a limit to greater adhesion strength. Surprisingly, the GSA maintained 54% of original stress in spite or marked deformation over 10,000 cycles. Shear Adhesion Strength of Thermoplastic Gecko-Inspired Synthetic Adhesive Exceeds Material Limits, Langmuir, 2011 |
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| MEDIC Millirobot with
belly climbing (May 2011) The Medic robot has a mass of 5.5 grams, and is capable of positioning within 1 mm using static SMA drive. The robot includes camera and wireless. (Kohut et al., ICRA 2011.) |
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| DASH 16 gram Hexapedal
Robot (Oct. 2009) Using compliant fiber board as structural material, and a single main driver motor, the DASH robot is capable of 15 body lengths per second on flat surfaces. The structure is resilient and survives ground impact at terminal velocity of 10 meters per second. IROS 2009. Video (Youtube). |
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| Dynamic turning by
modulating leg stiffness (Sep. 2010) The dynaRoACH robot has mass of 24 grams and is capable of running at 14 body lengths per second. By changing leg stiffness, the robot can execute a 90 degrees turn in 5 leg strides. BioRob 2010 |
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Altitude
Regulation
of
iBird
(Sept. 2010)
We identify free flight aerodynamic forces at a stable equilibrium point of an ornithopter and compare them with the tethered flight aerodynamic forces. We developed Closed-loop altitude regulation for the ornithopter using an external camera and onboard electronics shows that the tethered aerodynamic force measurement of a 12 gram ornithopter with zero induced velocity underestimates the total flight force by 24.8 mN. Movie (1.1 MB .avi) Biorob 2010 (Finalist for best paper award) |
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| Combined Lamellar
Nanofibrillar Array (Oct.
2009) Lamellar
structures act as base support planes for high-aspect ratio HDPE fiber
arrays. Nanofiber arrays on lamella can adhere to a smooth grating with
5 times greater shear strength than flat nanofiber array. Langmuir, Oct 2009
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| RoACH 2.0 and DASH on
Granular Media (Apr. 2010) Joint work with Goldman lab at GeorgiaTech to measure cost-of-transport on granular media shows 5-30 J/kg-m at 6-10 body lengths per second. SPIE 2010 |
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| Kids Science Challenge:
Bioinspired Design (Oct.
2009) Bouncing passive robot construction for
3rd to 6th graders.
Kids Science Challenge |
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Congratulations to Aaron Hoover for being awarded first place in the Graduate Robots Division of the ASME Student Mechanism and Robot Design Competition, part of the 2009 ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences, for ``RoACH: An Autonomous 2.4 gram Crawling Hexapod Robot''! (Sep. 2, 2009) |
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| Congratulations to Kevin Ma for being awarded second place in the Mechanisms- Undergraduate Division of the ASME Student Mechanism and Robot Design Competition, part of the 2009 ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences, for ``Flexure-based Ornithopter Transmission Mechanism''! (Sep. 2, 2009) |  |
| Australia Broadcast Corp feature on work
in Polypedal and Biomimetic Millisystem Labs (May 2009) Catalyst |
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Directional Adhesion of Angled Microfibers
(Nov. 2008)
Angled polypropylene
microfibers show strong directional adhesion effects, with shear
strength in direction of fibers 45
times larger than sliding against
fiber directions. A 1 sq. cm. patch supported a load of 450 grams in
shear. Directional
adhesion
of
gecko
inspired
angled
microfiber arrays, Applied Physics Letters, 2008. |
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| RoACH:An Autonomous 2.4 gram hexapod
robot (Sep. 2008) A
new 2.4 gram crawling robot was created which uses laser machined
glass fiber to create 57 flexure joints. The robot has on board power
and electronics, and a top speed of 3 cm/sec (~ 1 body length per
second).
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Self-Cleaning
Gecko Adhesive (Sep. 2008)
First synthetic gecko
adhesive which cleans itself during use, as the natural gecko does.
After contamination by microspheres, the microfiber array loses all
adhesion strength. After repeated contacts with clean glass, the
microspheres are shed, and the fibers recover 30% of their original
adhesion. The fibers have a non-adhesive default state, which
encourages particle removal during contact. |
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Fast Prototyping for Folded Millirobots (Apr.
2008)
By
using posterboard, laser cutting, and lamination processes,
multi-jointed robots can be rapidly prototyped in less than 2 hours. An
example 2X scale crawler model has 57 flexure joints and can be driven
using shape memory alloy actuation.Hoover ICRA 2008 Fab Process Movie Movie of crawler |
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Directional
Gecko
Adhesive
(Jan. 2008)
First easy attach, easy release, and directional synthetic
gecko adhesive using hard polymer microfibers. Microfiber array using
42 million polypropylene microfibers per square centimeter. Patches
can support 9 N/sq.cm. in estimated contact region with preload of just
0.1N/sq.cm.Sliding-induced adhesion of stiff polymer, Interface 2008 |
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High Lift with 270 Hz Wing Beat (Oct.
2007)
By increasing wing
beat
frequency from 170 Hz to 270 Hz, the lift force generated by
a single wing increased from 500 uN to 1400 uN, more than 2X the lift
required for the final 100 mg MFI to hover.Steltz et al IROS 2007 |
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High Power Density Bimorph Actuator (Oct.
2007)
Dynamometer
testing
shows energy delivery of 19 uJ per cycle from a 10
mg PZT bimorph actuator, with power delivery of > 450 W/kg at 270
Hz. (By comparison, the smallest motor available at 70 mg has power
density < 100 W/kg).Steltz&Fearing, IROS 2007 |
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ICRA 2006 Plenary Talk (May 2006)
Challenges for Effective
Millirobots |
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