A novel wave-like crawling robot has excellent swimming capabilities

Area of Science:

• Robotics
• Biomimetics
• Locomotion

Background:

• Undulatory motion is a common propulsion method in nature for both aquatic and terrestrial environments.
• Mimicking complex undulatory locomotion in robots is challenging due to the need for multi-joint coordination.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a minimalistic method for amphibious locomotion inspired by natural undulatory motion.
• To create a robotic prototype, AmphiSAW, capable of both crawling and swimming using sagittal plane wave generation.

Main Methods:

• A novel wave-generating mechanism was designed to produce motion in the sagittal (vertical) plane.
• A robotic prototype, AmphiSAW, was constructed to implement and test the proposed locomotion method.
• Performance was evaluated in terms of speed and cost of transport for both crawling and swimming.

Main Results:

• The AmphiSAW robot achieved crawling speeds of 1.5 B s^-1 and swimming speeds of 0.74 B s^-1 using its wave mechanism alone.
• The robot's performance was enhanced when equipped with front-mounted legs or wheels, particularly on uneven terrain.
• AmphiSAW exhibited the lowest cost of transport among reported amphibious robots.

Conclusions:

• The developed minimalistic method effectively enables efficient amphibious locomotion in robots.
• The AmphiSAW prototype demonstrates the viability of sagittal plane wave motion for versatile robotic movement.
• This approach offers a cost-effective solution for amphibious robot design, outperforming existing systems in transport efficiency.