The history and future of Stiquito: A hexapod insectoid robot

Abstract

Although the interest in walking robots is increasing, their use in industry is very limited. Still, walking robots have been popular in the tertainment market. Walking robots have advantages over wheeled robots when traversing uneven terrain. Two recent entertainment robotic dogs were the Tiger/Silverlit i-Cybie™ and the Sony Aibo™. WowWee Toys now designs and sells several robotic toys, including the Robosapien™ and Bugbots™. Boston Dynamics has created a robotic prototype of a pack mule called Big Dog that can carry hundreds of pounds of equipments on its four legs. These examples of large walking robots have the advantage of large power supplies and heavy electronics. Smaller, insect-like robots are more difficult to implement. However, in the 1990s, Drs. Mills and Conrad developed a kit that allows a user to make a very inexpensive insect robot, Stiquito (Fig. 1.1), from nitinol and music wire. With additional electronics, one can actually create a walking sticklike insect robot to traverse a small area and sense its surroundings. © 2009 Springer London.