An Insect-scale Untethered Laser-powered Jumping Microrobot
This work addresses the problem of powering small, untethered robots for applications like environmental monitoring or search-and-rescue, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing microrobot designs with a new power method.
The researchers tackled the challenge of creating a lightweight, untethered jumping microrobot by designing an insect-sized robot (17mm×6mm×14mm, 75mg) that jumps 8mm high using 6.4mW of power, with an untethered version powered by onboard photovoltaic cells and an external infrared laser.
We present the design of an insect-sized jumping microrobot measuring 17mm$\times$6mm$\times$14mm and weighing 75 milligrams. The microrobot consumes 6.4mW of power to jump up by 8mm in height. The tethered version of the robot can jump 6 times per minute each time landing perfectly on its feet. The untethered version of the robot is powered using onboard photovoltaic cells illuminated by an external infrared laser source. It is, to the best of our knowledge, the lightest untethered jumping microrobot with onboard power source that has been reported yet.