Development of a Bidirectional Locomotion Robot with Single DEA

Abstract

In recent years, research on inch worm robots that use artificial muscles to perform exploratory activities in extreme environments such as narrow spaces have been proposed. Dielectric Elastomer Actuator (DEA), which is classified as one of the artificial muscles, has high energy efficiency and deformation amount among Electro Active Polymer, which are electrically operated artificial muscles. In this research, we propose an inch worm robot with a special foot mechanism that enables switching between forward and backward movement with a single actuator. The is designed based on a DEA and an operating circuit that perform an ideal bending and stretching operation. From the experiments results, it is demonstrated that the robot can move forward and backward with different motion frequencies.