Abstract
In this study, we focus on a self-oscillating gel which drives without an electric power supply and fabricate a mm- and mg-scale actuator for development of an insect scale robot. Although many insect-inspired robots have been developed based on scale effect that the area force of the smaller object surpasses the volume force, the drive system consisting of a motor, reduction gear, and power supply has left their size cm- and g-scale. Here, we convert the periodical swelling and deswelling motion of the gel into the bending motion using two types of bilayer gel. As a result, the proposed gel actuator with the length of 5mm and the weight of less than 20mg periodically bent at the frequency of 2.11mHz and climbed on the Meniscus wall at the velocity of 0.96mm/s by changing the direction of the surface tension.
