9 accepted papers
This letter proposes a palm-sized omnidirectional mobile robot with two torus wheels. A single torus wheel is made of an elastic elongated coil spring in which the two ends of the coil connected each other and is driven by a piezoelectric actuator (stator) that can generate 2-degrees-of-freedom (axi
Surface-to-surface transitions, vertical and inverted locomotion, and high payload capacity are important requirements for a climbing robot. Despite many previous approaches, the miniaturization of climbing robots that satisfy these requirements is still a big challenge. In this letter, we present a
We present a millimeter-scale rolling microrobot driven by a set of a micro ultrasonic motor and a micro planetary gear train. The micro ultrasonic motor, consisting of a metallic cube with a side length of 2 mm, can produce a torque of 60 μNm and speed exceeding 4500 rpm. By attaching a micro plane
We propose a twin coil spring-based soft actuator that can move forward and backward with extensibility and can bend left and right with flexibility. It is driven by two flexible ultrasonic motors, each consisting of a compact metallic stator and an elastic elongated coil spring. The position of the
Unmanned Aerial vehicles (UAVs) are now a regular feature of modern society which are highly needed for the rescue mission and collecting information at unreachable places. But while the current generation of UAVs are undoubtedly useful, people around the world are increasingly talking of the need f…
To prioritize miniaturization, the actuators of micro robot hands are placed far from the end effectors, but such mechanisms restrict controllability and dexterity. We propose a miniature robot finger driven by a new micro linear ultrasonic motor as a key component for micro robot hands. It enables…
Typical continuum robots, such as pneumatic and tendon-driven robots, have a restricted section length and require a large external component for pulleys and a compressor, making them unsuitable for locomotion. This paper presents a new mobile continuum robot design with virtually unlimited extensib…
We present a flexible ultrasonic motor that generates linear motion as a novel soft actuator. This motor is comprised of a single cube stator with a through-hole, and a flexible coil spring inserted into the hole. The coil spring, which has a diameter of 10 mm and length of 200 mm, is translated by…
We propose an eye robot system with master-slave control using operator-gaze tracking data, which can produce a high response level such as that of the human eyes. The operators can move a remote robot camera by only moving their eye (master) in front of an eye tracking apparatus and obtain visual i…