Design and Manufacture of an Origami-Inspired Crawling Mini-robot

Abstract

The requirement for detection technology in confined space is becoming more diversified with the development of the modern industry. This study aims to design a miniature crawling robot that can perform the inspection and operation tasks in confined environments. To minimize the body structure of the robot for easy transportation and delivery, the origami principle is adopted. As a result, the developed origami-inspired crawling robot can be folded to a spatial structure (length 80 mm, width 80 mm, and height 40 mm) from the initial plate (Length 90 mm and width 80 mm). With the two symmetrical structured PZT actuators, the developed robot can achieve a stable crawling speed of 5 mm/s and a maximum of 9.7 mm/s. It is also demonstrated that the structured robot can climb the slope at 15° and turn with a speed of 0.17 rad/s.