A Multimodal Amphibious Robot Driven by Soft Electrohydraulic Flippers

Abstract

Soft robots are exceptionally suited to exploring complex environments, including amphibious navigations, due to their flexible and adaptive characteristics. However, achieving efficient actuation and multimodal locomotion or transition in amphibious environments for soft robots is challenging. In this paper, we present a multimodal amphibious robot with radial symmetry configuration and 3 different locomotion modes (crawling on land and underwater, swimming in water). The robot consists of 3 soft electrohydraulic flippers, which can be independently or synergistically actuated to rotate or oscillate in both air and water and generate the propulsion for amphibious locomotion. Theoretical analysis and experimental tests have verified the remarkable amphibious actuation performance of the soft electrohydraulic flippers with effective electrode encapsulation process. Optimal actuation frequencies are also obtained for maximizing the efficiency of the robot's movements in different mediums. Based on the 3 powerful soft electrohydraulic flippers with radial symmetry distribution, the robot can smoothly transition from crawling on land to crawling underwater, and swim up from the bottom to the surface of water, without reconfiguration of the robot. This work demonstrates the first amphibious soft robot based on electrohydraulic actuators with multimodal locomotion transition in an amphibious environment and may open up more possibilities for the development of multimodal soft robots.