Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Thanks CTOnews.com netizen Hua Ke high achiever's clue delivery! There is a "car" that can drive itself without a battery. It even automatically collects energy and runs continuously without mileage anxiety (manual dog head).

Yes, such a small robot is actually powered by light and radio waves. His name is MilliMobile and he is from the University of Washington.

Although it is only the size of a fingernail and weighs as much as a raisin, it takes no effort to carry a device that is three times its own weight. And can not only run the cement road, but also move freely on the "rural dirt road".

△ source: the University of Washington's first battery-free autonomous robot carrying sensors is often used to perform industrial tasks such as detecting gas leaks and tracking warehousing. But one of the big problems it faces is that disposable batteries not only limit the life of robots, but also are not very environmentally friendly.

Researchers have been looking for alternatives, such as tying sensors directly to insects.

△ source: University of Washington, but it is clear that researchers at the University of Washington think some of the methods of the past are uncontrollable. Their new idea is to use "simple harmonic motion" to drive the robot.

To put it simply, on the one hand, it is to reduce the size and weight of the robot so that it can run at very low power (less than 57 microwatts).

On the other hand, the researchers installed a thin-film capacitor on the MilliMobile to store energy from sunlight / radio waves. When the energy stored by the capacitor reaches a certain threshold, it can drive the motor to generate a short motion pulse to make the robot move.

When you see this, you may have a little doubt: is that it? Can this robot really run?

The researchers really succeeded in the experiment: even on cloudy days, MilliMobile can move 10 meters in an hour.

The speed is not fast, but the researchers say that as long as it can continue to run at this speed, it can bring new robotic capabilities to areas where it has previously been difficult to deploy sensors to obtain data.

And as mentioned at the beginning, MilliMobile is small but well-equipped, loaded with:

Four photodiodes are used to detect the light intensity in four directions, so that the robot can find the light source independently for charging.

Temperature and humidity sensor

Accelerometer

Magnetic sensor

Gas sensor

Miniature camera

Wireless communication chip

In this way, MilliMobile has a variety of sensing capabilities to detect terrain autopilot.

You can turn to the light source to recharge yourself:

Can complete rich spatial sampling and create a more detailed view of the environment.

By optimizing the synchronous transmission protocol at the software level, data can also be transmitted within a range of 200 meters. To sum up briefly, it can be said that MilliMobile has achieved autonomy in power supply, control and communication.

There is also a technology website evaluation: it is a bit of a sci-fi photo into the real flavor. What do you think?

Reference link:

[1] https://www.washington.edu/news/2023/09/27/millimobile-battery-free-autonomous-self-driving-robot-solar/

[2] Paper address: https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~vsiyer / Papers / millimobile-compressed.pdf

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