Journal of Bionic Engineering (2023) 20:568–583https://doi.org/10.1007/s42235-022-00294-x

A Hybrid Territorial Aquatic Bionic Soft Robot with Controllable Transition Capability 

Qingzhong Li1  · Fukang Zhang1  · Zeying Jing1  · Fujie Yu1  · Yuan Chen1

1 Department of Mechatronics and Information Engineering, Shandong University at Weihai, Weihai 264209, China

AbstractIn this paper, a bionic mantis shrimp amphibious soft robot based on a dielectric elastomer is proposed to realize highly adaptive underwater multimodal motion. Under the action of an independent actuator, it is not only able to complete forward/ backwards motion on land but also has the ability of cyclically controllable transition motion from land to water surface, from water surface to water bottom and from water bottom to land. The fastest speed of the soft robot on land is 170 mm/s, and it can crawl while carrying up to 4.6 times its own weight. The maximum speeds on the water surface and the water bottom are 30 mm/s and 14.4 mm/s, respectively. Furthermore, the soft robot can climb from the water bottom with a 9° slope transition to land. Compared with other similar soft robots, this soft robot has outstanding advantages, such as agile speed, large load-carrying capacity, strong body fexibility, multiple motion modes and strong underwater adaptability. Finally, nonlinear motion models of land crawling and water swimming are proposed to improve the environmental adaptability under multiple modalities, and the correctness of the theoretical model is verifed by experiments. 

Keywords Transition · Amphibious soft robot · Dielectric elastomers · Bionic mantis shrimp soft robot