PCB Robot

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MKIII Final Test!
Carl Bugeja • 08/19/2019 at 17:24 • 0 comments

In this video I went back to retest my PCB Robot! I upgraded the firmware to controller it over Bluetooth, added a new LiPo and tested how the weight and position of the battery effected the locomotion of the robot.
2-Legged PCB Robot?
Carl Bugeja • 03/09/2019 at 09:46 • 0 comments

After my last test I conclude that to make the robot go faster, I need to use a higher current rated battery to pump more current into the coils, or use a lighter one to.

But what if I reduce that weight by cutting off two legs? And that's what I tested. By doing this the robot was no longer omni-directional, but this change immediately showed that the concept was working better. The magic happened after shifting the turning axes of the robot. Its not 100% balanced, from the video you can see that one of the legs is slightly shifting and not move straight. But it's now probably faster than a turtle :-)

I'm not going to abandon the 4-legged PCB Robot design just yet. I still looking and get quotes from different manufactures on different lipo batteries. Once I receive the battery I will test the robot again and maybe even add a similar pivot to see what happens. In the meantime, I I can also start playing around the the modules Bluetooth stack!
MKIII Testing
Carl Bugeja • 02/24/2019 at 06:18 • 1 comment

The PCB Robot is finally crawling around! I document all the progress in this video
New PCBs!
Carl Bugeja • 02/03/2019 at 21:08 • 0 comments

The new PCBs have just arrived! Thank you PCBway for sponsoring this project!

The flexible PCB is going to act as both the brain and the muscle of my PCB Robot

The rigid FR4 PCB is the frame that's going to prevent the middle part (were the electronics is going to be soldered) from bending and also hold the 4 magnets. Hats off to PCBway for pulling this off! The pcb is 0.6mm thick and it's width is just 1mm! So the milling machine had a very difficult task but they still managed to do it :D
MKIII - Design
Carl Bugeja • 01/20/2019 at 22:44 • 0 comments

In this new video, I explain how I designed my four-legged PCB Robot MKIII, having a BLE module and a simple circuit for driving the coils and charging them!
Walking Circuits
Carl Bugeja • 12/09/2018 at 22:17 • 4 comments

MKII test video!
Now that I have proofed that the idea can work out, I can start designing MKIII.

PCB Robot MKIII will be made from just a pcb, magnets and a battery. This cheap robot will be ideal for swarm robotics.
MKII
Carl Bugeja • 11/30/2018 at 22:08 • 0 comments

My new light-weight design:
3 freakin' grams! (Yes I'm going to have a problem with the battery for MKIII but I have a plan)
Concept
Carl Bugeja • 11/29/2018 at 19:32 • 0 comments
This was my first attempt in trying to use flexible PCBs as robot legs!

As shown in the video this prototype manged to make some small steps but I was expecting a better behavior. These are all the things that needs to be improved for MKII:
- Align the PCB so that all legs deliver the same amount of force - strongest point is the middle of the coil, if misaligned different forces with different angles are produced
- Reduce the gap between the PCBs and magnet
- Reduce weight

Discussions

Lloyd Konneker wrote 04/19/2019 at 12:06

Your coil is inefficient because it is too spread out? You could build a two (or more) layer coil by folding the flex PCB over on to itself and gluing the layers together?

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Darian Johnson wrote 04/10/2019 at 02:16

Carl - I've been following your tweets - I'm a huge fan. I see that you've been LIPO hunting, and you recent came across a 28 mAh version. Can you share where you it? I haven't had any luck finding anything that small (that's not a coin cell)

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Carl Bugeja wrote 04/10/2019 at 04:39

Here it is - https://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/0.html?spm=a2g0s.9042647.6.2.b5134c4d366V9t&orderId=99820035361888&productId=32818409469

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Jo Verbeeck wrote 03/23/2019 at 19:37

Very cool project!

I have been playing a bit this afternoon with Nd magnets and ceramic core smd inductor of 1uH (i really want to built a simple but precise linear stepper motor). The pull/push they give is not too bad and I was wondering about an inverted design for your feet. Let the magnets rest on the ground and the pcb picks up their edges with say 4 (or 3 or 2) inductors. This way stepping like a piezo motor might be possible if the bottom of the magnet was coated with a rubbery material. A ferromagnetic core would be better, but they are all (?) understandably designed to keep their fields inside for emi reasons.

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Daren Schwenke wrote 02/25/2019 at 07:09

To produce any useful locomotion beyond what you could get with a simple vibration source, you will probably need to add some angled rubber nipples. With 6 elements and careful phasing of your drive signals, you could then get pretty fine control. For help from the biological world, look up video on how a cockroach moves over uneven terrain.

I believe that is the first time I've ever posted... add nipples...

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Sandhan Sarma wrote 12/17/2018 at 17:05

Hi Carl! Cool poject. I was thinking can youir mechanism be used to create flapping wings which could generate enogh thrust to lift it off the ground?

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Carl Bugeja wrote 01/20/2019 at 22:51

Its definitely something that is on my mind - but I have so many projects going on that i'm trying to close them up before starting new once :)

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Mike Szczys wrote 11/30/2018 at 15:59

I've been watching your Tweets about this and glad to see you have published it here. The concept is a very interesting one to explore. I especially like that you were inspired by soft robotics.

The weight challenges remind me of the blimp projects we've seen. Unfortunately, you're kind of stuck with the mass of the magnets since they're integral to the locomotion here. Have you done any experiments with using two coils to push against one another and getting rid of the permanent magnet? I have zero experience in this area, but I imaging coils can be energized out of phase to repel each other, is that right?

Are you sure? yes | no

Carl Bugeja wrote 11/30/2018 at 22:07

Hi Mike! :) the magnetic field of two coils against each other would be too weak to produce any flexing. I'm able to produce that behavior because although the coil's magnetic field is weak, it's still enough to react to a magnet which have a much stronger magnetic field. So unfortunately I cannot get rid of the magnets. They weight 0.35grams each, which would add up to around half the weight of the robot for MKII.

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PCB Robot

Description

Project Logs

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MKIII Final Test!

2-Legged PCB Robot?

MKIII Testing

New PCBs!

MKIII - Design

Walking Circuits

MKII

Concept

Discussions

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