A Survey of Bioinspired Jumping Robot: Takeoff, Air Posture Adjustment, and Landing Buffer

Hindawi Applied Bionics and Biomechanics Volume 2017, Article ID 4780160, 22 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/4780160 Review Article A Survey of Bioinspired Jumping Robot: Takeoff, Air Posture Adjustment, and Landing Buffer ZiQiang Zhang,1 Jing Zhao,1 HanLong Chen,2 and DianSheng Chen2 1 2 College of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Electronics Technology, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China Correspondence should be addressed to ZiQiang Zhang; Received 27 June 2017; Accepted 8 August 2017; Published 14 September 2017 Academic Editor: Craig P. McGowan Copyright © 2017 ZiQiang Zhang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. A bioinspired jumping robot has a strong ability to overcome obstacles. It can be applied to the occasion with complex and changeable environment, such as detection of planet surface, postdisaster relief, and military reconnaissance. So the bioinspired jumping robot has broad application prospect. The jumping process of the robot can be divided into three stages: takeoff, air posture adjustment, and landing buffer. The motivation of this review is to investigate the research results of the most published bioinspired jumping robots for these three stages. Then, the movement performance of the bioinspired jumping robots is analyzed and compared quantitatively. Then, the limitation of the research on bioinspired jumping robots is discussed, such as the research on the mechanism of biological motion is not thorough enough, the research method about structural design, material applications, and control are still traditional, and energy utilization is low, which make the robots far from practical applications. Finally, the development trend is summarized. This review provides a reference for further research of bioinspired jumping robots. 1. Introduction A jumping robot can cross the obstacle several times its own height and has a good ability to avoid risks [1]. For example, the flea-inspired jumping designed by Noh et al. can jump a distance of up to 30 times its body size [2], and miniature a jumping robot designed by Kovac et al. can jump obstacles more than 27 times its own size [3]. The strong jumping ability of this type of robots makes it possible to move in a complex and changeable environment with big obstacles, and it has potential application value in many fields, such as star detection, disaster rescue, and military reconnaissance. This greatly widens the application field of robots [4, 5]. According to different structure forms, the jumping robot can be divided into two types: nonbionic jumping robot and bioinspired jumping robot. The nonbionic jumping robot is a type of robot which does not have the shape characteristics or movement characteristics of a creature and only is designed according to the actual needs. For example, internal combustion driving is used for some nonbionic jumping robot, which can jump by kinetic energy of the jumping robot converted by the high temperature and high-pressure gas generated by the combustion of the combustible mixture gas doing the work [6–8], and this drive method is completely different from the creatures. In nature, the creature has a good adaptability to the environment after a long period of evolution, and it shows a high rationality in the physiological structure, motion control, and posture adjustment [9–12]. Therefore, it is one of the important research directions to develop a robot system that can simulate the structure and function of creatures to expand the motion function of the traditional robots. Bioinspired jumping robots are designed using the bionic ideas on the basis of revealing the jumping movement mechanism of creature with jumping ability. It can simulate the efficient and stable jump process of creature and has high jumping ability [13]. In the field of bioinspired jumping robots, most of the early research focused on simulating the jumping process of large animals, such as kangaroo [14]. With the development of bionics, material science, biomechanics, and control science, the latest research results of various related disciplines are gradually applied to the study of bioinspired 2 jumping robot, so that the bioinspired jumping robot develops from imitating the macroscopic movement to the miniaturization and integration of material and structure [4]. The jumping process of creatures or bioinspired jumping robots can be divided into three stages, namely, takeoff stage, air posture adjustment stage, and landing buffering stage. The takeoff process can determine the takeoff speed, jumping height, and jumping distance and then determine the obstacle performance. In air posture adjustment stage, the creatures or robots should be able to control the body posture in the air to achieve a stable motion state, and it also provides the basis for a good landing [15]. Because the landing speed is large (e.g., the landing velocity of the bioinspired jumping robot designed by Zhang et al., which is approximately equal to takeoff velocity without other influence, is about 4.4 m/s [16]), if there is no good landing buffering mechanism, the creatures are prone to overturning or rollover. So the landing buffering stage determines whether the creatures or robots can continue the next movement [17]. These three stages are important to the jumping process, and the bioinspired jumping robot should be able to maintain good movement performance in above three stages, so as to achieve good jumping ability. This paper summarizes the research status of the bioinspired jumping robots for takeoff stage, air posture adjustment stage, and landing buffering stage, and the movement performances of the bioinspired jumping robots are analyzed and compared. On this basis, the limitations and future development trends are analyzed. 2. Research Status of Bioinspired Jumping Robot 2.1. Takeoff Stage. The creature with jumping ability can achieve steady and efficient takeoff, and the study of takeoff mechanism of creature is the basis of the design of bioinspired jumping robot. The articular structure [18], muscle movement mechanism [19], movement pattern [20], and energy conversion [21, 22] of many mammals and insects with jumping ability, such as kangaroos [23], locusts [24–26], crickets [27], fleas [28], and froghopper [29], are studied, and the design of the structure and motion pattern of the bioinspired jumping robot mostly draws on the takeoff movement mechanism of the creature to achieve good jumping performance. According to the different driving modes, the bioinspired jumping robot can be divided into three types: pneumatic drive, spring drive, and flexible material drive. 2.1.1. Pneumatic Drive. Pneumatic drive has the advantage of good co (...truncated)