A soft cube capable of controllable continuous jumping

Soft-bodied robots are designed to work in the physical world with a high compliance, while most of them lack in highly dynamic motion. In this paper, we present a soft-bodied jumping robot, which leverages its body's elasticity to achieve a highly dynamic passive bouncing motion after an activ...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Li, Shuguang, Katzschmann, Robert Kevin, Rus, Daniela L
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 2018
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/115949
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0856-9715
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7143-7259
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5473-3566
Description
Summary:Soft-bodied robots are designed to work in the physical world with a high compliance, while most of them lack in highly dynamic motion. In this paper, we present a soft-bodied jumping robot, which leverages its body's elasticity to achieve a highly dynamic passive bouncing motion after an active jumping motion. This robot has a cubic shape. It is covered by silicone foam, and each of its six faces has an opening to allow for jumping actuation. By winding up and releasing an elastic strip, the robot can jump in two directions at any orientation. We present the design, and fabrication process, and experimental results. By comparing this robot with a rigid version of the robot, we show that this soft-bodied robot can use a single jump to travel longer forward than its rigid counterpart.