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Design and Modelling of Flex-Rigid Soft Robot for Flipping Locomotion

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Abstract

This paper presents design and modelling of a flex-rigid soft robot for flipping locomotion. The proposed robot is made into a strip shape and consists of three rigid limbs connected by two active flexible hinges. Its flipping locomotion is achieved by active folding and developing of the hinges. To validate its locomotion ability, we build a state-space model to simulate its dynamics, which is compared with the experimental data. The results show that the proposed flex-rigid robot can perform flipping locomotion with average velocity of 59mm/s in simulation and 60mm/s in experiment, and the model can predict its movement effectively.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51475300, 51875335) and Joint fund of the Ministry of Education (No.18GFA-ZZ07-171).

Funding

This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51475300, 51875335) and Joint fund of the Ministry of Education (No.18GFA-ZZ07-171).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Institute of Robotics, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Dongchuan Road 800, Shanghai, 200240, People’s Republic of China

    Jiangbei Wang & Yanqiong Fei

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  1. Jiangbei Wang
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  2. Yanqiong Fei
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Correspondence to Yanqiong Fei.

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Wang, J., Fei, Y. Design and Modelling of Flex-Rigid Soft Robot for Flipping Locomotion. J Intell Robot Syst 95, 379–388 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-018-0957-7

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