A novel type of underwater crawling microrobot

In this paper, in order to deal with the resistance of friction caused by rough surface of the ground in underwater, we designed a novel type of underwater microrobot, which is made of two segments of ICPF (ionic conducting polymer film) actuators and a body. We have carried out the experiments of the microrobot And the result shows that this walk-style leg has a good walking performance on rough surface. The displacement matrix of an ICPF actuator sample has been measured with different input signals. The sample is same as the actuators acting as the legs of the microrobot in dimensions. The trajectory of the ICPF actuator is also calculated out. With the trajectory function, the displacement matrix has been modified. The moving speed matrix of the microrobot is also measured during experiments. On the other hand, according to measuring of the force characteristic, an improved top speed matrix of the microrobot is predicted. The results indicate that the theoretical top speed model is similar to the measured speed matrix