Message #2700 - comp.robotics Date: 09-24-92 16:36 From: Jonathan Mills To: All (xpost: 1) Subject:: Stiquito, A Small Nitinol-Propelled Robot ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- @PID: Fred 1.9.h @MSGID: 1:124/2206.0 94146d06 @Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington @Message-ID: <1992Sep24.113622.24133@news.cs.indiana.edu> @ @ Stiquito: A Small Nitinol-Propelled Hexapod Robot The Computer Science Department's Robotics Laboratory at Indiana University (Bloomington) has designed, built, and tested "Stiquito," a six-legged robot that you customize by adding sensors, controllers, power sources, etc. The robot provides an inexpensive platform to study computational sensors, subsumption architectures, neural gait control, emergent cooperative behavior, and machine vision. It is currently being used for research at IU, and, at a ratio of one robot per student, in "VLSI for Robotics" and "Machine Learning" classes. Stiquito is small (3cm H x 7cm W x 6cm L) and simple (32 parts) because its legs are propelled by nitinol actuator wires. Each leg has one degree of freedom. The robot walks up to 10 centimeters per minute and can carry a 9-volt cell, a MOSIS "tiny chip" and power transistors to drive the nitinol actuator wires. Alternatively, power and control can be supplied through a tether. A single robot costs between $10 and $30. The pro-rated cost of materials to construct robots in volume (200 or more) is less than $3. The design can be replicated to build complex arthropods, or colonies containing hundreds of insectoid robots. IUCS Technical Report 363a, "Stiquito: A Small, Simple, Inexpensive Hexapod Robot -- Part 1. Locomotion and Hard-Wired Control" contains detailed instructions to build the robot and a hard-wired, manually-operated controller. The instructions are illustrated with 80 life-sized figures that include dimensions and enlarged details. Materials, tools, and vendors are listed. Special sections include construction skills for novice users, how to fix mistakes, and troubleshooting problems found in real-world experience with the robot. Stiquito and its manual controller are assembled by crimping and press-fitting parts. No soldering is necessary. The resulting robot is very reliable. A tethered Stiquito walked for over 100 hours. During the test each leg made 300,000+ 2-3mm strokes. The leg movement was reduced because power was supplied during the test by a 6v AC/DC adapter. With a 6v "J" battery typical leg movement is 3-7mm. Battery-powered leg movement was unchanged after the test. Anyone may build and use Stiquitos in any quantity for educational or research purposes, but Indiana University reserves all rights to commercial applications. Part 1 of the technical report is now available and can be obtained in two ways: 1. ELECTRONICALLY ----------------- Use anonymous ftp to obtain the technical report free. IU's ftp site is: cs.indiana.edu Log in as "anonymous" with username@host or "guest" as a password. The report will be in one or the other of two directories: pub/ pub/techreports The report is available in two formats: stiquito.tar (PostScript) stiquito.hqx (stuffed, binhexed Microsoft Word 4 for Mac) Unfortunately, some of the illustrations in the PostScript file print with minor errors (patterns missing, and some polygons deformed), but they are still understandable. 2. BY MAIL (with options for a kit and a videotape) --------------------------------------------------- Send your request for the report with payment to: Computer Science Department 215 Lindley Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana, 47405 To receive the technical report only send $5 US PRE-PAID and add the following line to the address: ATTN: TR 363a To receive the technical report and a kit containing all materials needed to construct Stiquito and its manual controller send $15 US PRE-PAID. Add the following line to the address: ATTN: TR 363a Stiquito Kit The kit alone is available for $10 US PRE-PAID. Add the following line to the address: ATTN: Stiquito Kit The charges cover materials, a kitting fee, the technical report, and mailing. The kit is provided as a non-profit service by Indiana University. The author receives no fee or reimbursement from the sale of the kit. The CS department has also videotaped the assembly of a Stiquito (including the author making some mildly embarrassing mistakes during construction! :-). It is available separately for an additional $10 US PRE-PAID. Just add VIDEO to the attention line. For example, if you purchased the TR, kit, and video then $25 US would be enclosed and the following line would be added to the address: ATTN: TR 363a Stiquito Kit VIDEO Part 2 of the technical report, "Sensors and Controllers," is in preparation. It describes analog and digital controllers, legged Braitenburg vehicles, and sensor and communicatons interfaces to Stiquito. Part 3 of the technical report, "Experiments with Arthrobots," will describe a variety of arthropod robots and report on experiments in emergent cooperative behavior using a colony of Stiquitos. Questions about Stiquito should be sent to jwmills@cs.indiana.edu. There are many different ways to design smaller, larger, or multiple-degree-of-freedom nitinol-propelled robots, legs, tentacles, grippers, etc. Some we've tried, most we haven't. We hope you will be encouraged to use Stiquito as a stepping-stone to better and more effective miniaturized robots. ------------------------------------------------------------------ This research was funded in part by NSF Grant MIP-9010878 "Lukasiewicz Logic Arrays" awarded to J.W. Mills, and NSF Grant CDA-8852304 "Incubator Laboratory Development" awarded to D. Gannon, G. Rawlins, and J. Smith. NSF's support is gratefully acknowledged. Standard disclaimer for opinions, etc. expressed in this posting. ------------------------------------------------------------------ - J. W. Mills "Sic ago!" --- * Origin: Dallas/Ft.Worth Usenet Gateway (1:124/2206.0) @PATH: 124/9999