Locomotion mechanism and control method for a microrobot using the difference in the vibration characteristics of the legs (development of controller for experiments on frequency characteristics of running microrobot)

In recent years, various investigations have been conducted on microrobots by many researchers, and contests are held throughout the year with the aim of developing microrobot technologies. As a result, various types of microrobots have been proposed including motor-type, piezoelectric-element-type, and electromagnet-type microrobots. To date, the author´s research group has been studying a locomotion mechanism and a control method for an electromagnet-type microrobot, which has a volume of 1cm3. In a previous study by the author, a structure and a control method that enable a microrobot with only one electromagnet coil to turn were proposed, and the characteristics of a running microrobot were investigated through some experiments. Here, theoretical confirmation of the effectiveness of the proposed method requires a mathematical model of the motion of the microrobot and some experiments with sinusoidal signals to indicate the validity of the mathematical model. So, the purpose of this paper is to develop experimental equipment including a controller which can generate sinusoidal signals. The basic function of the developed controller was confirmed through some experiments.