A soft quadruped robot enabled by continuum actuators

摘要

Soft robots are a group of robots made from highly compliant materials. Compared to their rigid counterparts, soft robots show better mobility and stronger adaptability to the environment. Specifically, soft quadruped robots, using four soft actuators as robot legs, have become a popular design, and are proven to be feasible and reliable in performing soft locomotion. Traditional soft quadruped robots are actuated using pneumatic forces which require high pressure sources. Additionally, the travel range of these robots are limited. This paper proposes a new design of soft quadruped robot that is fully actuated with electric motors. The main components of the robot are 3D printed and can be easily assembled. The four soft legs of the robot are modeled with experimental data and a closed loop controller is developed to regulate the deformation and motion. The legs can perform complex movement which enables the quadruped robot to move with different gaits.