Journal
NATURE
Volume 571, Issue 7765, Pages 381-+Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1388-8
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Funding
- Japan Public-Private Partnership Student Study Abroad Program
- Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) 'START' Project
- Swiss National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) Robotics
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In ant colonies, collectivity enables division of labour and resources(1-3) with great scalability. Beyond their intricate social behaviours, individuals of the genus Odontomachus(4), also known as trap-jaw ants, have developed remarkable multi-locomotion mechanisms to 'escape-jump' upwards when threatened, using the sudden snapping of their mandibles(5), and to negotiate obstacles by leaping forwards using their legs(6). Emulating such diverse insect biomechanics and studying collective behaviours in a variety of environments may lead to the development of multi-locomotion robotic collectives deployable in situations such as emergency relief, exploration and monitoring(7); however, reproducing these abilities in small-scale robotic systems with simple design and scalability remains a key challenge. Existing robotic collectives(8-12) are confined to two-dimensional surfaces owing to limited locomotion, and individual multi-locomotion robots(13-17) are difficult to scale up to large groups owing to the increased complexity, size and cost of hardware designs, which hinder mass production. Here we demonstrate an autonomous multi-locomotion insect-scale robot (millirobot) inspired by trap-jaw ants that addresses the design and scalability challenges of small-scale terrestrial robots. The robot's compact locomotion mechanism is constructed with minimal components and assembly steps, has tunable power requirements, and realizes five distinct gaits: vertical jumping for height, horizontal jumping for distance, somersault jumping to clear obstacles, walking on textured terrain and crawling on flat surfaces. The untethered, battery-powered millirobot can selectively switch gaits to traverse diverse terrain types, and groups of millirobots can operate collectively to manipulate objects and overcome obstacles. We constructed the ten-gram palm-sized prototype-the smallest and lightest self-contained multi-locomotion robot reported so far-by folding a quasi-two-dimensional metamaterial(18) sandwich formed of easily integrated mechanical, material and electronic layers, which will enable assembly-free mass-manufacturing of robots with high task efficiency, flexibility and disposability.
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