Towards Autonomous Printable Robotics: Design and Prototyping of the Mechanical Logic

New strategies for controlling printable robots are needed for inexpensive and rapid integrated electromechanical prototyping. In this work, we propose a printable, easy-to-fabricate controller—what we refer to as the mechanical logic—which contains a bistable mechanism that acts as a mechanical switch which generates an oscillating binary electrical signal. The integration of the mechanical logic with conductive actuators endows it with clocking and current switching functions; thus, powered by a constant electrical energy source, the mechanical logic is able to autonomously control a sequence of actuations. To demonstrate this technique, we designed and fabricated prototypes of the mechanical logic, whose raw materials (not including the power supply) cost approximately 40 cents. Under a constant-current (0.55 A) power source, our mechanical logic was able to induce current oscillation with an average period of around 3.8 s. This property of the mechanical logic could ultimately be incorporated into onboard controllers for printable robots and devices.