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© 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

The development of a soft crawling robot (SCR) capable of quick folding and recovery has important application value in the field of biomimetic engineering. This article proposes an origami-inspired vacuum-actuated foldable soft crawling robot (OVFSCR), which is composed of entirely soft foldable mirrored origami actuators with a Kresling crease pattern, and possesses capabilities of realizing multimodal locomotion incorporating crawling, climbing, and turning movements. The OVFSCR is characterized by producing periodically foldable and restorable body deformation, and its asymmetric structural design of low front and high rear hexahedral feet creates a friction difference between the two feet and contact surface to enable unidirectional movement. Combining an actuation control sequence with an asymmetrical structural design, the body deformation and feet in contact with ground can be coordinated to realize quick continuous forward crawling locomotion. Furthermore, an efficient dynamic model is developed to characterize the OVFSCR’s motion capability. The robot demonstrates multifunctional characteristics, including crawling on a flat surface at an average speed of 11.9 mm/s, climbing a slope of 3°, carrying a certain payload, navigating inside straight and curved round tubes, removing obstacles, and traversing different media. It is revealed that the OVFSCR can imitate contractile deformation and crawling mode exhibited by soft biological worms. Our study contributes to paving avenues for practical applications in adaptive navigation, exploration, and inspection of soft robots in some uncharted territory.

Details

Title
Origami-Inspired Vacuum-Actuated Foldable Actuator Enabled Biomimetic Worm-like Soft Crawling Robot
Author
Xu, Qiping; Zhang, Kehang; Chenhang Ying; Xie, Huiyu  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Chen, Jinxin  VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Shiju, E  VIAFID ORCID Logo 
First page
541
Publication year
2024
Publication date
2024
Publisher
MDPI AG
e-ISSN
23137673
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
3110404824
Copyright
© 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.