A Millimeter-Scale Micro Crawling Robot with Fast-Moving Driven by a Miniature Electromagnetic Linear Actuator

The micro crawling robot exhibits significant potential applications in various fields such as fault detection, disaster relief, and environmental monitoring. This article introduces a high-performance millimeter scale crawling robot driven by a miniature electromagnetic linear actuator (MELA) with a body length of 5–6 mm and a mass of 80 mg. In this article, the working principle of the micro robot is analyzed and validated, and the influence of current, frequency, and angle α between the direction of actuator's force and the crawling surface on the crawling speed are analyzed through experiments. Results show that the optimal α ranges from 50° to 55°, and a specific current and frequency are identified to achieve maximum crawling speed for robot with particular α. When α is 50°, with a current of 300 mA and a frequency of 200 Hz, the robot reached the maximum speed of 20.2 Body Length s⁻¹(BL s⁻¹). The proposed robot can crawl at 12 BL s⁻¹ with a load of 110 mg, and support a maximum load of 400 mg. Additionally, the robot demonstrated diverse capabilities such as climbing on a 10° slope with a load of 110 mg, jumping on a 1 mm obstacle, and crawling on surfaces of various materials.