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Development and evaluation of a Venus flytrap-inspired microrobot

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Abstract

Nature has provided the inspiration for many robots, leading to the development of biomimetic machines based on stick insects, jellyfish, butterflies, lobsters, and inchworms. Some carnivorous plants are capable of rapid motion, including mimosa, Venus flytraps, telegraph plants, sundews, and bladderworts, all of which are of interest in the design of biomimetic robots that can be activated in a controlled manner to capture prey using trigger hairs. Here, we describe a biomimetic robotic inspired by a Venus flytrap and fabricated using two ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC) actuators. First, we describe the structure of the robotic flytrap, which consists of two IPMC lobes and a proximity sensor, and discuss the design of the control circuitry. We then evaluate the deformation and bending force of the IPMC actuator with various applied signal voltages. We describe a prototype robotic flytrap utilising a proximity sensor to imitate the trigger hairs of the Venus flytrap. We conducted an experiment to assess the feasibility of the biomimetic flytrap. To evaluate grasping ability, we measured the maximum grasping payload with different applied voltages. To enlarge the working area, we integrated biomimetic walking and rotating motion into the robotic Venus flytrap. This paper describes a prototype movable robotic Venus flytrap and evaluates its walking and rotating speeds.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the excellent young scholars Research Fund of Beijing Institute of Technology and the Basic Research Fund of the Beijing Institute of Technology (No. 3160012211405). This work was partly supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (61375094).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Life Science, Beijing Institute of Technology, Haidian District, Beijing, 100081, China

    Liwei Shi & Shuxiang Guo

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  1. Liwei Shi
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  2. Shuxiang Guo
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Correspondence to Liwei Shi.

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Shi, L., Guo, S. Development and evaluation of a Venus flytrap-inspired microrobot. Microsyst Technol 22, 1949–1958 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-015-2484-9

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