Thermobot: A bipedal walker driven by constant heating

This paper reports on a bipedal walking mechanism driven by constant heating, which walks on a heated horizontal surface. The mechanism is based on a passive dynamic walker and powered by thermal deformation of bimetal. A prototype is composed of two legs jointed to a waist shaft and cylindrical feet whose bottoms were looped around by bimetal sheets. When the prototype was placed on a horizontal surface heated at 170 °C, the bimetal sheets deformed to excite lateral swinging motion of the walker body and the walker successfully walked. The paper discusses the gait of the walker by analyzing swing periods in traveling direction and lateral direction. The estimation on the walker gait was quantitatively confirmed through motion tracking of walker legs.