Octopus-Inspired Underwater Soft Robotic Gripper with Crawling and Swimming Capabilities

Area of Science:

• Robotics
• Soft Robotics
• Biomimetic Design

Background:

• Traditional robotic grippers are limited by their attachment to robotic arms.
• Expanding the mobility of grippers enhances their application scope.
• Octopus behavior inspires novel robotic designs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an integrated, multifunctional soft robotic gripper with independent mobility.
• To enable dexterous manipulation and autonomous movement in unstructured environments.
• To overcome the limitations of traditional robotic grippers.

Main Methods:

• Implementation of a soft robotic gripper with 6 independently controlled arms.
• Development of 8 distinct gripping actions for various object types.
• Integration of omnidirectional crawling and swimming capabilities.

Main Results:

• The soft gripper successfully executed multimodal adaptive grasping for diverse objects.
• Autonomous omnidirectional locomotion (crawling and swimming) was achieved.
• Demonstrated integrated tasks including releasing, grasping, crawling, swimming, and retrieving in underwater environments.

Conclusions:

• The developed soft robotic gripper offers enhanced dexterity and mobility beyond traditional robotic arms.
• This technology has potential applications in complex underwater tasks like litter collection and exploration.
• Biomimetic design provides a pathway for creating advanced robotic systems.