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This paper introduces a cable-driven limbless robot that utilizes reconfigurable body morphology and compliance to achieve versatile locomotion across various terrains. By employing distributed cable actuation and programmable passive compliance, the robot can generate diverse locomotion modes such as lateral undulation and sidewinding without the need for complex sensing or high-bandwidth feedback. Experimental results confirm the robot's ability to navigate obstacle-rich environments and seamlessly transition between locomotion styles, highlighting its potential for practical applications in search and rescue and environmental monitoring.
A single limbless robot can seamlessly transition between multiple locomotion modes, enhancing its adaptability in complex environments.
Limbless robots offer exceptional mobility in confined and cluttered environments due to their slender bodies and their ability to exploit body-terrain interactions. Recent designs incorporating compliance demonstrate robust locomotion without complex sensing or control; however, these systems typically rely on fixed body configurations, with each morphology specialized for a single locomotion mode or environment. This raises a key challenge: how can a single limbless robot achieve versatile locomotion while preserving the robustness of compliance-mediated locomotion? To address this challenge, we present a cable-driven limbless robot that reconfigures body morphology and compliance to enable diverse locomotion modes. Distributed cable actuation generates traveling body waves, while programmable passive compliance enables robust contact-rich locomotion without terrain knowledge or high-bandwidth feedback. Rolling joints reorient bending planes along the body, enabling rapid reconfiguration and smooth transitions between locomotion styles, and incorporate geared locking to maintain configuration without continuous power. By combining programmable bending compliance and morphology control, the platform achieves lateral undulation, sidewinding, rolling, and twisting within a single system. Experiments demonstrate reliable gait generation, traversal in obstacle-rich environments, and transitions between modes, establishing a versatile limbless platform for navigating complex environments with applications in search and rescue, environmental monitoring, and inspection.
