Fabrication of Composite and Sheet Metal Laminated Bistable Jumping Mechanism

A layer-based manufacturing method using composite microstructures is widely used for mesoscale robot fabrication. This fabrication method has enabled the development of a lightweight and robust jumping robot, but there are limitations in relation to the embedding of elastic components. In this paper, a fabrication method for embedding an elastic component at an angled position is developed, extending the capability of the composite microstructures. This method is then used to build an axial spring attached to the bistable mechanism of a jumping robot. Sheet metal is used as an elastic component, which is stamped after the layering and curing process, thereby changing the neutral position of the spring. Two linear springs are designed to be in parallel with a joint to impose bistability; thereby delivering two stable states. This bistable mechanism is triggered with a shape memory alloy (SMA) coil spring actuator. A small-scale jumping mechanism is then fabricated using this mechanism; it jumps when the snap-through of the bistable mechanism occurs. A model of the stamped sheet metal spring is built based on a pseudo rigid body model (PRBM) to estimate the spring performance, and a predictive sheet metal bending model is also built to design the die for stamping. The experimental results show that the stamped sheet metal spring stores 12.63 mJ of elastic energy, and that the mechanism can jump to a height of 175 mm with an initial takeoff velocity of 1.93 m/s.