A Legged Soft Robot Platform for Dynamic Locomotion
This work addresses the challenge of creating fast and dynamic soft robots for applications in robotics and multi-terrain environments, representing an incremental advance in soft robotics.
The researchers developed an open-source untethered quadrupedal soft robot platform for dynamic locomotion, achieving a speed of 0.9 m/s (2.5 body lengths/second), which is faster than most existing untethered legged soft robots.
We present an open-source untethered quadrupedal soft robot platform for dynamic locomotion (e.g., high-speed running and backflipping). The robot is mostly soft (80 vol.%) while driven by four geared servo motors. The robot's soft body and soft legs were 3D printed with gyroid infill using a flexible material, enabling it to conform to the environment and passively stabilize during locomotion on multi-terrain environments. In addition, we simulated the robot in a real-time soft body simulation. With tuned gaits in simulation, the real robot can locomote at a speed of 0.9 m/s (2.5 body length/second), substantially faster than most untethered legged soft robots published to date. We hope this platform, along with its verified simulator, can catalyze the development of soft robotics.