Microfabricated thermally actuated microrobot

Abstract

The work presented in this paper concerns the study, the design, the fabrication and the experimentation of a legged microrobot. Legs were developed by integrating in each two thermal bimorph actuators, which give two degrees of freedom. After their fabrication and their experimentation, the legs were integrated on a body to realize the complete structure of the microrobot in a monolithic way. This microrobot was totally made by microfabrication in a clean room. The microrobot has a total volume of 6 mm/spl times/3.5 mm/spl times/0.5 mm and possesses six legs. Its experimentation allowed to determine its potential performances. This microrobot can find numerous applications in microrobotics, such as the inspection of stuffy environments, the micro-escorting or as a plug and play function in a system.