SoSpider:A bio-inspired multimodal untethered soft hexapod robot for planetary lava tube exploration  

作　　者：NIU LiZhou DING Liang ZHANG ShengJie YANG HuaiGuang GAO HaiBo DENG ZongQuan LIU GuangJun HOSSAIN Mokarram 

机构地区：[1]State Key Laboratory of Robotics and Systems,Harbin Institute of Technology,Harbin 150001,China [2]Department of Aerospace Engineering,Ryerson University,Toronto ON M5B 2K3,Canada [3]Zienkiewicz Institute for Modelling,Data and AI,Swansea University,Swansea SA18EN,United Kingdom

出　　处：《Science China(Technological Sciences)》2023年第11期3090-3106,共17页中国科学（技术科学英文版）

基　　金：supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No.2019YFB1309500);the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos.91948202 and 51822502);the support of the Royal Society through the International Exchange Grant (IECNSFC211316) with the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)。

摘　　要：Soft robots have tremendous potential for applications in various fields,owing to their safety and flexibility embedded at the material level.Soft robots,especially bio-inspired soft legged robots,have become one of the most active fields of current research in robotics thanks to their superior mobility and ability to face complex terrains.However,it is arduous to establish a dynamic simulation model for soft robots,owing to their hyper-redundant degrees of freedom,hyper-elasticity,and nonlinearity of their soft structures.In this study,we designed,simulated,and fabricated a hexapod robot that achieves walking,crawling,pronking,and rolling with wheeled legs plus a soft body capable of shape change.A robot prototype was fabricated using 3D printing technology and soft silicone pneumatic networks.Actuators,battery power,and control boards were integrated into the body of the robot for untethered locomotion.We have explored the capabilities of the robot in different conditions,especially in scenarios that simulate lunar and Martian environments,demonstrating the motion performance of the robot.The results have shown promising potentials of the developed robot for future applications in planetary lava tube exploration.Our experimental and simulation results also show good agreements that indicate the potential predictive roles of simulation tools for soft robot design,planning,and control.

关 键 词：MULTIMODAL soft robot PNEUMATIC simulation planetary exploration 

分 类 号：TP242[自动化与计算机技术—检测技术与自动化装置] V476.4[自动化与计算机技术—控制科学与工程]