Design of a new air pressure perception multi-cavity pneumatic-driven earthworm-like soft robot

Abstract

This paper presents a soft robot which can imitate the crawling locomotion of an earthworm. Locomotion of the robot can be achieved by expanding and contracting the body that is made of flexible material. Earthworm-like soft robot can agilely get through cramped space and has strong ability of self-adaption to an unstructured environment. A link of the earthworm-like robot is combined with three modules, and the robot is combined with multiple links. Experiments on a single module, two-links and three-links show that the soft robot can move and bend on condition of modules extension and contraction in a specified gait. In the process of earthworm-like robot movement, the internal pressure of each cavity is detected and adjusted in real-time to change the moving and bending state of earthworm-like soft robot to realize the ability of self-adaption to unstructured environment. The air pressure perception earthworm-like soft robot shows a great prospect in many complicate environment such as pipeline detection.