A soft robot that navigates its environment through growth

Across kingdoms and length scales, certain cells and organisms navigate their environments not through locomotion but through growth. This pattern of movement is found in fungal hyphae, developing neurons, and trailing plants, and is characterized by extension from the tip of the body, length change of hundreds of percent, and active control of growth direction. This results in the abilities to move through tightly constrained environments and form useful three-dimensional structures from the body. We report a class of soft pneumatic robot that is capable of a basic form of this behavior, growing substantially in length from the tip while actively controlling direction using onboard sensing of environmental…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Awards: award334518, 1637446