Engineers unlock design for a record-breaking robot that can jump twice as high as Big Ben

Engineers from the University of Manchester have unlocked the secrets of designing a robot that can jump 120 meters – higher than any other jumping robot designed to date.

Using a combination of mathematics, computer simulations and laboratory experiments, the researchers have discovered how to design a robot with the optimal size, shape and arrangement of its parts, allowing it to jump high enough to overcome obstacles many times larger than its size. own size.

The current highest jumping robot can reach up to 33 meters, which is 110 times its own size. Now researchers have designed a robot that can jump more than 400 feet in the air – or 650 feet on the moon, which is more than twice the height of Big Ben’s tower.

The progress, published in the magazine Mechanism and machine theorywill revolutionize applications ranging from planetary exploration to disaster rescue to surveillance of dangerous or inaccessible spaces.

Co-author Dr. John Lo, Research Associate in Space Robotics at the University of Manchester, said: “Robots have traditionally been designed to move by rolling on wheels or using legs to walk, but jumping is an effective way to travel around locations where the terrain is very uneven, or where there are many obstacles, such as in caves, through forests, over boulders, or even on the surface of other planets in space.

“Although jumping robots already exist, there are several major challenges in designing these jumping machines, the most important of which is that they must jump high enough to overcome large and complicated obstacles. Our design would dramatically increase the energy efficiency and performance of spring-powered jumping improve. robots.”

The researchers found that traditional jumping robots often take off before fully releasing their stored spring energy, resulting in inefficient jumps and limiting their maximum height. They also found that they wasted energy by moving or turning from side to side instead of moving straight up.

The new designs should focus on removing these unwanted movements while maintaining the necessary structural strength and stiffness.

Co-author Dr. Ben Parslew, senior lecturer in aerospace engineering, said: “There were so many questions to be answered and decisions to be made about the shape of the robot, such as whether it should have legs to push itself off the ground like a kangaroo. or should it more like a specially designed piston with a giant spring? Should it have a simple symmetrical shape, like a diamond, or should it be something more curved and organic?

“After deciding this, we need to think about the size of the robot: small robots are light and agile, but large robots can carry larger motors for more powerful jumps, so is the best option somewhere in the middle?

“Our structural redesigns redistribute the mass of the robot’s components toward the top and taper toward the bottom. Lighter legs, shaped like a prism and using springs that only stretch, are all features we have shown they improve the performance and especially: the energy efficiency of the jumping robot.”

While the researchers have found a practical design option to significantly improve performance, their next goal is to control the direction of the jumps and discover how to harness the kinetic energy of the landing to increase the number of jumps the robot can do in one go. make to improve. attack. They will also explore more compact designs for space missions, making the robot easier to transport and deploy to the moon.