Application of Self-Excited Electrostatic Actuator to Small Bristle-Bots

Abstract

Small robots are attracting attention for exploring narrow/confined spaces that humans cannot enter. Among various small robots, bristle-bots have been studied for microrobots because of their simple structures. Although various actuators such as electromagnetic motors and piezoelectric actuators have been used for actuators of bristle-bots, this research focuses on self-excited electrostatic actuators. That is because They have a simple structure, can be driven by a DC voltage, and have the characteristic that the force density increases as the size increases, so they are expected to be suitable for the small wireless robots. In this paper, we propose a bristle-bot driven by a self-excited electrostatic actuator and experimentally verified the feasibility of the proposal with a prototype.