Prototyping a thermal walker that can walk on a hot horizontal surface with a simple gait

摘要

This article reports on a newly designed thermal walker that can walk on a hot horizontal surface without any motor or battery. The walker converts heat energy from the hot surface into mechanical motion by using bimetal sheets. The prototype developed in the previous study successfully demonstrated walking, but its gait was not ideal; a leg swings forward and backward a few times to achieve one step. This article designs a new walker to realize more natural walking, in which a leg simply swings forward once in each step. For this purpose, the article introduces a new design process to better estimate the swing period. Also, material used for the feet of the walker is reconsidered to realize stable continuous walking. The newly fabricated prototype has aluminum feet and can walk on a hot horizontal surface with the simple gait. The surface temperature required for walking was 110 °C, which was considerably lowered from that in the previous study, which was 170 °C.