Bamboo-Inspired Morphological Design of Service-Robot Trunks for Xiang-Gan Heritage Museums

Revolutionary heritage museums in the Xiang-Gan region provide a bounded context for studying how service-robot trunk morphology can respond to representative needs for height adaptation, interface orientation, and constrained indoor operation. In this setting, a robot's form is considered alongside its service function as a potential reference to Xiang-Gan red-culture heritage, although visitor interpretation is not evaluated here. This computational design study translates bamboo node-internode segmentation, hollow taper, nodal reinforcement, and compliant bending into explicit morphological, structural, and control variables. Three conditions were defined: a conventional engineering baseline, a culturally styled condition reserved for future evaluation, and a bamboo-inspired coupled condition. Kinematic analysis, linear structural finite-element analysis, and sensitivity analysis were used to compare the baseline and coupled conditions under documented assumptions. The coupled condition produced 74.1% of the baseline composite kinematic coverage index and reduced calculated mass by approximately 7.8%, but it also reduced the calculated bending stiffness by approximately 10.5% and the mass-specific stiffness by approximately 3.0% under the stated linear model. The exploratory analyses indicated 95.7% retention of the baseline feasible composite coverage and a higher index normalized by active-control-variable count, but these quantities are definition-dependent computational sampling results. The findings identify trade-offs in translating bamboo-inspired morphology into a service-robot trunk and highlight joint stiffness, passive extension, and contact behavior as parameters requiring physical calibration. They do not establish physical robot performance, collision safety, cultural effects, or museum deployment.