Crocodile-Inspired Soft Robots With Spatial Bending Leg Actuators and Coordinated Locomotion Planning for Amphibious Environments

摘要

Recently, there has been rapid development in soft crawling robots due to their simple control structure and strong adaptability in unstructured environments. In this article, we <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">first</i> present a crocodile-inspired amphibious soft robot (CASR) with multicoordinated locomotion modes. First, a spacial bending leg actuator with a single air path is designed to support the CASR body and enable forward movement simultaneously. Additionally, a bellows-based periodic lateral swing rigid-soft coupled trunk actuator is designed to cooperate with leg-actuated locomotion to enhance flexibility and maneuverability. Meanwhile, compared with existing robots that focus on the external morphology of the tail, this article designs an actively controlled pneumatic grid tail actuator. Further, appropriate casting-based patterns are proposed to fabricate the spacial bending soft actuator with a complex structure. On this basis, multiactuator coordinated locomotion planning methods are proposed, including belly crawling, high walking, galloping, turning, and swimming. Finally, an experimental platform of CASRs is established, and experimental results demonstrate that the designed actuators and proposed coordinated locomotion planning methods endow CASRs with high flexibility, adaptability, and maneuverability in both terrestrial and aquatic environments.