Wireless remote control for an electromagnet-type moving microrobot (experimental results for legs´ vibrations and straight runs)

Recently, many researchers have been studying microrobots. Moreover, yearly contests have been held in order to develop microrobot technologies. As a result of these activities, various types of microrobot have been proposed, including motor-type, piezoelectric-element-type, and electromagnet-type microrobots. To date, the authors´ research group has been studying a locomotion mechanism and control method for an electromagnet-type microrobot, which has a volume of 1[cm³]. The proposed microrobot has a feature of being able to turn with single electromagnet coil using the difference of the vibration characteristics of the legs. In this paper, we propose a wireless remote control method for the microrobot, using the feature of the locomotion mechanism and control method we have proposed previously. To show the fundamental function of the wireless remote control method proposed, we report on some experimental results for legs´ vibrations and straight runs of the microrobots.