Study on bio-jumping mechanism inspired from locust take-off jumping mechanism
NI Hong1,2, ZHEN Yong-qian1,WANG Yan-cheng1, MEI De-qing1, CHEN Zi-chen1
1. The State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power Transmission and Control, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027,China;2. Department of Information, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Hangzhou Norman University Qianjiang College, Hangzhou 310036,China
A bio-jumping mechanism inspired from locust take-off mechanism is designed and fabricated. Firstly, the kinematics and mechanical characteristics of the locusts’ take-off phase were investigated by high-speed camera experimental study. The results show that the locust saltatorial leg has a non-linear force output characteristic in take-off phase, which could effectively avoid the impact of instantaneous force changes. Then, a bio-jumping mechanism inspired from locust take-off mechanism was designed. By adopting a six link mechanism as the saltatorial leg and a linear spring as storage mechanism, the linear force generated by the spring can be converted into nonlinear output force of foot. Finally, a prototype of bio-jumping mechanism was developed and the experiments for the take-off phase were carried out. The experimental results show that the designed bio-jumping mechanism has the similar movement characteristics as that of the locust during take-off phase, and it can realize relative to 129% of its own jumping height. The results provide a new approach for design of the jumping robot.