Water Dancer II-a: a Non-tethered Telecontrollable Water Strider Robot

• Main Authors: Licheng Wu, Zhipeng Lian, Guosheng Yang, Marco Ceccarelli
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2011-09-01
• Series: International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems
• Subjects: Micro robot; Bionics; Robot Design; Fluid Mechanics; Water Strider Robots
• Online Access: http://www.intechopen.com/articles/show/title/water_dancer_ii_a_a_non_tethered_telecontrollable_water_strider_robot

Water Strider Robot (WSR) is a kind of bio‐ inspired micro robot that can stand and move on water surface via surface tension. In this paper, a design method is presented with algorithms for designing driving leg. Structure, control system and software of the robot are also discussed in details. A prototype Water Dancer II‐a that is driven with two electric motors is presented as successfully tested in lab. The proposed WSR is tele‐controlled with infrared signals and has the capability of turning and speed regulation with features of light tiny volume and low power consumption. Experimental results are reported and discussed to show practical feasibility of the presented WSR prototype. The new results in the paper are related also to the WSR prototype design with a robot body of less than 30 x 30 mm size and with ten leg rods of 90 mm length and 0.2 diameter that are able to provide lifting force for a water walk of the 6.0 grams robot at a forward speed of 20 cm/s or angular velocity of 9 degree/s with two micro DC motors (RoomFlight 4 x 8 mm, 28 Ohm).