Journal article 137 views
SoSpider: A bio-inspired multimodal untethered soft hexapod robot for planetary lava tube exploration
Lizhou Niu,
Liang Ding,
Shengjie Zhang,
Huaiguang Yang,
Haibo Gao,
Zongquan Deng,
Guangjun Liu,
Mokarram Hossain 
SCIENCE CHINA Technological Sciences, Volume: 59, Pages: 183 - 190
Swansea University Author:
Mokarram Hossain
DOI (Published version): 10.1007/s11431-023-2519-9
Abstract
Soft robots have tremendous potential for applications in various fields, owing to their safety and flexibility embedded at the material level. Soft robots, especially bio-inspired soft legged robots, have become one of the most active fields of current research in robotics thanks to their superior...
| Published in: | SCIENCE CHINA Technological Sciences |
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| ISSN: | 1674-7321 1869-1900 |
| Published: |
2023
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| Online Access: |
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa64690 |
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| Abstract: |
Soft robots have tremendous potential for applications in various fields, owing to their safety and flexibility embedded at the material level. Soft robots, especially bio-inspired soft legged robots, have become one of the most active fields of current research in robotics thanks to their superior mobility and ability to face complex terrains. However, it is arduous to establish a dynamic simulation model for soft robots, owing to their hyper-redundant degrees of freedom, hyper-elasticity, and nonlinearity of their soft structures. In this study, we designed, simulated, and fabricated a hexapod robot that achieves walking, crawling, pronking, and rolling with wheeled legs plus a soft body capable of shape change. A robot prototype was fabricated using 3D printing technology and soft silicone pneumatic networks. Actuators, battery power, and control boards were integrated into the body of the robot for untethered locomotion. We have explored the capabilities of the robot in different conditions, especially in scenarios that simulate lunar and Martian environments, demonstrating the motion performance of the robot. The results have shown promising potentials of the developed robot for future applications in planetary lava tube exploration. Our experimental and simulation results also show good agreements that indicate the potential predictive roles of simulation tools for soft robot design, planning, and control. |
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| Keywords: |
Multimodal, soft robot, pneumatic, simulation, planetary exploration |
| College: |
Faculty of Science and Engineering |
| Funders: |
This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2019YFB1309500) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 91948202 and 51822502). Hossain Mokarram acknowledges the support of the Royal Society through the International Exchange Grant (IECNSFC211316) with the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). |
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