Gecko adhesion based sea star crawler robot

Sampada Acharya; Peter Roberts; Tejas Rane; Raghav Singhal; Peize Hong; Viraj Ranade; Carmel Majidi; Victoria Webster-Wood; B Reeja-Jayan

doi:10.3389/frobt.2023.1209202

Gecko adhesion based sea star crawler robot

Front Robot AI. 2023 Jul 4:10:1209202. doi: 10.3389/frobt.2023.1209202. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Sampada Acharya¹, Peter Roberts², Tejas Rane³, Raghav Singhal⁴, Peize Hong³, Viraj Ranade³, Carmel Majidi², Victoria Webster-Wood⁵, B Reeja-Jayan¹

Affiliations

¹ Far-from-equilibrium Materials Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, United States.
² Soft Machines Lab, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, United States.
³ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, United States.
⁴ Department of Biomedical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, United States.
⁵ The CMU B.O.R.G, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, United States.

Abstract

Over the years, efforts in bioinspired soft robotics have led to mobile systems that emulate features of natural animal locomotion. This includes combining mechanisms from multiple organisms to further improve movement. In this work, we seek to improve locomotion in soft, amphibious robots by combining two independent mechanisms: sea star locomotion gait and gecko adhesion. Specifically, we present a sea star-inspired robot with a gecko-inspired adhesive surface that is able to crawl on a variety of surfaces. It is composed of soft and stretchable elastomer and has five limbs that are powered with pneumatic actuation. The gecko-inspired adhesion provides additional grip on wet and dry surfaces, thus enabling the robot to climb on 25° slopes and hold on statically to 51° slopes.

Keywords: bio-inspired robots; gecko; gecko adhesion; sea star; soft-robots.

Grants and funding

This work is supported by the Center for Machine Learning and Health (CMLH) at Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Mellon University Mechanical Engineering Startup.