Water-Surface Stability Analysis of a Miniature Surface Tension-Driven Water Strider Robot

When water strider robots row on water, the periodically stroking water surface of the actuating legs will unavoidably bring vibrations and instabilities that might cause the robots to sink into water. In this work, a stability analysis model for water strider robots rowing on water was proposed and a mass-spring-damper-like model was defined to describe the robot-water interactions. We applied this model to evaluate the water-surface stability of a miniature surface tension-driven water strider robot by detaily discussing the effects of the actuating legs' rowing with different rowing frequencies on the vibration, pitching and swinging motions. The theoretical results indicates the robot possesses a good water-surface stability. The stability analysis model presented in this study can help with the design of water strider robots in future.