Amphibian-Inspired Locomotion Strategy for a Slime-Based Magnetic Soft Robot

摘要

Amphibian taxa have adapted to thrive within demanding aquatic and terrestrial habitats. Leveraging their specialized anatomical features and distinctive modes of locomotion, amphibians present captivating paradigms for the emulation of bioinspired robotics. Robotics scholars exhibit profound interest in replicating their mechanisms. Nevertheless, the replication of amphibious motion necessitates produce automated actuation, which naturally powered by chemical energy converting mechanical energy process in animals. Prior research endeavors addressed this challenge through the development of rigid robotic systems employing integrated servomotors and intricate mechanical components, which limit the compliance of the robot design and complicate the robot control. In this study, we present research that bridges the remote magnetic robotics control approach and soft slime material to create a finger-tip-sized bioinspired magnetic soft robot (MSR), inspired by the mudskipper. This design has a simpler control method and an appearance more similar to the creature. The MSR with 3 cm length can recreate the terrestrial locomotion of a mudskipper under an ∼46 milliteslas (mT) single rotating external magnetic field. A singular row of space fabric structure was printed to serve as the robot’s pectoral fin by using a stereolithography additive printing technique. By emulating the rowing motion of the mudskipper’s pectoral fin structure, this design offers a locomotion model for estimating the stride length of robot’s movement, which contributes to refining the quantification approach for controlling slime-based MSRs such as conventional rigid robots. The untethered controllability, small size, predictable locomotion, and nonrigid body of the MSR show promising application potential in the biomedical engineering area.