Legless soft robots capable of rapid, continuous, and steered jumping

Rui Chen; Zean Yuan; Jianglong Guo; Long Bai; Xinyu Zhu; Fuqiang Liu; Huayan Pu; Liming Xin; Yan Peng; Jun Luo; Li Wen; Yu Sun

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-27265-w

Legless soft robots capable of rapid, continuous, and steered jumping

Nat Commun. 2021 Dec 7;12(1):7028. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-27265-w.

Authors

Rui Chen^#¹, Zean Yuan^#², Jianglong Guo^#³, Long Bai^#², Xinyu Zhu², Fuqiang Liu⁴, Huayan Pu⁵, Liming Xin⁶, Yan Peng⁷, Jun Luo^{2

8}, Li Wen⁹, Yu Sun¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Mechanical Transmissions, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400044, China. cr@cqu.edu.cn.
² State Key Laboratory of Mechanical Transmissions, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400044, China.
³ School of Science, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), Shenzhen, 518055, China.
⁴ College of Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400044, China.
⁵ School of Mechatronics Engineering and Automation, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, China. phygood_2001@shu.edu.cn.
⁶ School of Computer Engineering and Science, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, China.
⁷ Research Institute of Unmanned Surface Vessel Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, China.
⁸ School of Mechatronics Engineering and Automation, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, China.
⁹ School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, China.
¹⁰ Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Jumping is an important locomotion function to extend navigation range, overcome obstacles, and adapt to unstructured environments. In that sense, continuous jumping and direction adjustability can be essential properties for terrestrial robots with multimodal locomotion. However, only few soft jumping robots can achieve rapid continuous jumping and controlled turning locomotion for obstacle crossing. Here, we present an electrohydrostatically driven tethered legless soft jumping robot capable of rapid, continuous, and steered jumping based on a soft electrohydrostatic bending actuator. This 1.1 g and 6.5 cm tethered soft jumping robot is able to achieve a jumping height of 7.68 body heights and a continuous forward jumping speed of 6.01 body lengths per second. Combining two actuator units, it can achieve rapid turning with a speed of 138.4° per second. The robots are also demonstrated to be capable of skipping across a multitude of obstacles. This work provides a foundation for the application of electrohydrostatic actuation in soft robots for agile and fast multimodal locomotion.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't