A Lightweight Jumping Robot with Untethered Actuation.

Jumping motion is enlarging the robotic toolbox by providing agile and rapid locomotion functions that can overcome the limitations of environment and size. Although these jumping robots powered by novel mechanisms and functional materials have shown remarkable dexterity and adaptability, their intricate actuation mechanics make it challenging to realize the jumping robots lightweight and compact. To address this challenge and endow robots capable of untethered movements, we focused on ultralight magnetic carbon fiber beams that exhibit arch-like bending when triggered under magnetic field and induce a rapid release of stored strain energy after the magnetic field is removed. We evaluated their bending process under magnetic field and build untethered jumping robots with respect different geometries to help analyze their jumping performances. In our experiment, a single magnetic carbon fiber beam robot (0.8 g) with a height of 0.2 mm and a length of 80 mm is able to achieve a jumping height of 420 body heights and a jumping distance of 4.5 body length. By assembling two magnetic beams together, our robot can jump to more than 325 times of its body height carrying a payload of 3 times its body weight. These results demonstrate the developed jumping robot avails a new design strategy for lightweight and compact jumping robot to function in complicated conditions.