Innovative Design for Enhanced Adaptability and Performance of Soft Inchworm Robot

Abstract

The simplicity of design in soft robots holds significant importance. This study introduces a novel and straightforward design for a soft inchworm robot, enhancing reliability, controllability, energy-efficiency, and cost effectiveness. The distinctive feature of our design lies in leveraging friction variations, allowing the soft inchworm robot to achieve bidirectional movements, both forward and backward, using a single air tubing. Manipulating the pressure and frequency serves as the primary mechanism for controlling the direction of the inchworm robot. The efficiency of our approach is substantiated through extensive testing on diverse surfaces, with a specific focus on direction and velocity. This comprehensive testing simulates various environmental conditions characterized by various frictional properties. The singular pneumatic pathway employed in our design not only mitigates potential issues related to tube entanglement and increased system complexity but also highlights the practicality and elegance of our approach in comparison to traditional multi-tube pneumatic systems.