Power and Control Autonomy for High-Speed Locomotion With an Insect-Scale Legged Robot

We present a power and control autonomous, insect-scale legged robot the Harvard Ambulatory MicroRobot with RF communication (HAMR-F). At only 2.8 g and 4.5 cm in length, HAMR-F is capable of locomotion at speeds up to 17.2 cm/s (3.8 body lengths per second) with an onboard battery. Two microcontrollers and custom drive electronics independently control eight high-voltage piezoelectric actuators to enable gait flexibility and maneuverability across a range of stride frequencies. An onboard microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) inertial measurement unit provides feedback for controlled, straight-line running on this size- and weight-constrained mobile microrobot. The main contributions of this letter are: first, the design of lightweight power electronics for independently driving multiple high-voltage (200 V) piezoelectric actuators, second, a detailed characterization of HAMR-F's speed, maneuverability, and cost of transport, and finally, the integration of an onboard feedback controller for straight-line, high-speed running.