Abstract
In nature, a variety of limbless locomotion patterns flourish, from the small or basic life forms (Escherichia coli, amoebae, etc.) to the large or intelligent creatures (e.g., slugs, starfishes, earthworms, octopuses, jellyfishes, and snakes). Many bioinspired soft robots based on locomotion have been developed in the past few decades. In this work, based on the kinematics and dynamics of two representative locomotion modes (i.e., worm-like crawling and snake-like slithering), we propose a broad set of innovative designs for soft mobile robots through simple mechanical principles. Inspired by and going beyond the existing biological systems, these designs include 1-D (dimensional), 2-D, and 3-D robotic locomotion patterns enabled by the simple actuation of continuous beams. We report herein over 20 locomotion modes achieving various locomotion functions, including crawling, rising, running, creeping, squirming, slithering, swimming, jumping, turning, turning over, helix rolling, wheeling, etc. Some are able to reach high speed, high efficiency, and overcome obstacles. All these locomotion strategies and functions can be integrated into a simple beam model. The proposed simple and robust models are adaptive for severe and complex environments. These elegant designs for diverse robotic locomotion patterns are expected to underpin future deployments of soft robots and to inspire a series of advanced designs.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 4441-4456 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | Soft Matter |
Volume | 13 |
Issue number | 25 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 7 Jul 2017 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2017 The Royal Society of Chemistry.
Funding
X. C. acknowledges support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11372241 and 11572238), ARPA-E (DE-AR0000396) and AFOSR (FA9550-12-1-0159). L. Z. acknowledges support from the China Scholarship Council.