A Fully 3D‐Printed Tortoise‐Inspired Soft Robot with Terrains‐Adaptive and Amphibious Landing Capabilities

Abstract

Abstract Terrain adaptation and amphibious landing pose the greatest challenges for soft amphibious robots. Based on the principles of tortoises, this paper presents a fully 3D‐printed soft amphibious robot with four pneumatic bionic legs that are capable of bending in three dimensions. The gaits of the robot are described in six different ways and a dynamic model is developed for its control. In addition to linear motion (0.97 BL s −1 ) and turning (25.4° s −1 ) on rigid terrain, the robot can also maneuver on various surface conditions (such as hills, gaps, smooth slopes, gravel, sand, muddy terrain, and water), and even make an amphibious landing. These properties, together with the soft amphibious robot's continuous obstacle avoidance capabilities, high load‐carrying capacity (28 times its own weight), low cost, and high camouflage, allow for a wide variety of applications.