A Single Driven Bionic Water Strider Sliding Robot Mimicking the Spatial Elliptical Trajectory *

Abstract

When a water strider sliding on the water, the spatial elliptical trajectory of the driving leg plays a critical role in ensuring efficient sliding movement and stability. At present, the bionic water strider robot prototype generally adopts the dual motor drive mode to realize this complex spatial trajectory, increasing the weight of the robot and go against the maximization of the performance. Moreover, the research on bionic water strider robots mainly focuses on the tiny scales, the load capacity is weak, and difficult to achieve practical application. In response to these problems, this paper proposes a new driving principle, the driving leg realizes the spatial elliptical trajectory by the elliptical slot cam and the two rotating mechanisms driven by a single motor. Based on this, a small water surface sliding robot based on buoyancy support is designed. In order to verify the motion performance of the robot, the dynamic model was established. Then, ADAMS and MATLAB co-simulation method was adopted to analyze the sliding movement of the robot Finally, the forward and turning motion experiments of the robot prototype with different stroke speeds were conducted. The total weight of the robot is 137g, with an additional load capacity of 130g, the maximum straight stroke speed of the robot is 24.3cm/s, and the maximum turning speed is 35°/s.