A Miniature Jumping Robot Using Froghopper’s Direction-Changing Concept

To improve the maneuverability and agility of jumping robots, a variety of steerable jumping mechanisms have been actively studied. The steering ability enables a robot to reach a particular target by altering its jumping direction. To make this possible, we propose a miniature steerable jumping robot based on froghopper’s jumping principle: Moment cancellation is achieved via synchronous leg rotation, and a predictable jumping direction is achieved through an almost zero stiffness femoro-tibial joint. To satisfy these working principles, the robot is designed to have a four-bar shaped body structure and wire-driven knee joints. The four-bar body always synchronizes the leg operation by mechanically coupling the two jumping legs, which enables the robot to cancel out the moments and finally reduce the needless body spin. The knee joints are actuated using wires, and the wires are kept loose to maintain joint stiffness almost zero during take-off. Accordingly, the jumping direction is successfully predicted to determine the initial posture of the tibia. As a result, the proposed robot can change the jumping direction from −20 degrees to 20 degrees while reducing needless body spin.