Last Updated: 5/2/2025
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Science Robotics
Max Polzin, Qinghua Guan, Josie Hughes Published: ****26 Feb 2025
Robotic locomotion has advanced, but robots still lack the agility of animals in complex terrains, limiting their usefulness. Traditional robots rely on detailed perception systems, while a bioinspired approach uses morphological reconfiguration to adapt. However, such adaptability is often limited or reduces efficiency. Our study develops robots that actively reconfigure their morphology to navigate diverse environments efficiently. By combining compliance with shape-shifting abilities, a robot transitioned between flat and spherical forms, enabling autonomous driving, rolling, and swimming with minimal sensing. It successfully navigated 4.5 km across varied terrains, surpassing traditional robots in versatility, efficiency, and robustness. This innovation could enhance autonomous navigation for applications like environmental monitoring, disaster response, and space exploration.
Soft Robotics Journal
Nana Obayashi, Kai Junge, Parth Singh, Josie Hughes Published: ****28 October 2024
This paper examines real-time stiffness modulation within a single tail stroke for swimming soft robots. Existing stiffening mechanisms lack the dynamic bandwidth to match tail actuation, complicating optimization of thrust and efficiency. A high-bandwidth, fluid-driven stiffening mechanism within a patterned pouch is proposed, allowing independent stiffness control inspired by fluidic actuation. Experimental results show improvements in both thrust and swimming efficiency, where tailored tail actuation and stiffness modulation achieve an optimal balance for specific maneuvers. Fluid dynamics insights are provided through analysis of the vortices generated during actuation. Frequency modulation and real-time stiffening extend the Pareto front for thrust and efficiency.
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