折り紙の原理で移動する索状クローリングロボット

抄録

Crawling robots are widely proposed as mobile robots which can go through narrow pipes. Many of the robots use pneumatic-expanding bags to anchor on a wall. However, such mechanism needs large external air pressure sources, and inflating bags are often fragile. To overcome the problems, a new robot that uses expanding/shrinking elastic plates and drive them by rotational extension/contraction of the robot bodies was proposed. One of the defects of the mechanism is that the restoring force from plates is so strong that the robot needs high motor torques to twist its bodies. Inspired by Origami folding, this research proposes a new driving mechanism that do not use twist motion. Two Origami ribbons, one is straight and the other is looped, behave opposite inflation/deflation by the same extension/contraction movement. Altering the twisted driven plates with these simply folded plates, the same crawling motion will be realized by using only sliding motion between the units. By the proposed mechanism, more compact crawling robot will be realized with less motor torques.