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 Smart Materials and Structures

Smart Mater. Struct. 30 (2021) 085038 (11pp) https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-665X/ac102d

Multimodal soft jumping robot with

self-decision ability
Qingrui Wang, Xiaoyong Tian∗ and Dichen Li
State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an,
Shaanxi 710049, People’s Republic of China

E-mail: leoxyt@mail.xjtu.edu.cn

Received 1 March 2021, revised 22 June 2021

Accepted for publication 30 June 2021
Published 14 July 2021

Abstract
The next generation of soft robots should have self-decision ability to judge reasonable
responses adaptively according to external stimulation and without human assistance. However,
few of the current soft robots have brains to think independently; rather, they have integrated
sensors and actuators, similar to animals having skin and muscles. In this paper, a bistable soft
jumping robot with self-decision ability is reported, which is manufactured by 4D printing of
composites with continuous fibers. The snap-through triggered by temperature stimulation
resulted in the jumping motion of the robot, and its jumping mode is controlled by a
programmed continuous fiber pattern. This robot able to take decisions can change from the
initial state to the final state via different deforming pathways when snap-through occurs,
resulting in multiple jumping motion modes. This soft robot can realize (1) different jumping
modes, including forward, rotational, lateral, and overturn movements; (2) self-decision
function of motion modes responding to external stimuli; and (3) continuous movement, by
repeatedly jumping under periodic temperature stimulation. This research will provide a new
scheme for soft robotics to achieve the integration of sensation, actuation, and decision.

Supplementary material for this article is available online

Keywords: smart materials, additive manufacturing, structural composites, thermal properties

(Some figures may appear in color only in the online journal)

1. Introduction robots to make autonomous motion decisions are still very

Soft robots have attracted much attention owing to their
high flexibility, spatial adaptability, and simple structure,
which rigid robots often do not possess [1–3]. A variety
of motion modes, including crawling [4, 5], climbing [6],
swimming [7, 8], rolling [9], jumping and growth [10] have
been developed for soft robots. The integration of multiple
motion modes of the robots determines their space adaptab-
ility and application scope. Some recent works have reported
the multimodal motion characteristic of soft robotics, but the
decision for which mode or which direction to move always
depends on manual assistance [11–15]. Efforts to enable soft
∗
Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed.
limited.
Rigid robots can achieve controllable motion with high pre-
cision by means of chips, sensors, and other electronic devices,
which are usually inflexible and heavy [16, 17]. It is neces-
sary to find soft substitutes for the above rigid devices when
manufacturing soft robots with entire flexibility and uncon-
straint [18, 19]. Although much progress has been made in
the field of flexible electronics [20], the motion of tethered
robots is constrained, which limits their application [21]. It is
a long-standing challenge for soft robots to realize intelligent
response, full flexibility, and unconstraint at the same time,
and they often make sacrifices in some aspects to meet specific
requirements [18, 22]. To solve this problem, some studies
focus on integrating smart response characteristics into mater-
ials without electronics [23]. Microfluidic and mechanical

1361-665X/21/085038+11$33.00 1 © 2021 IOP Publishing Ltd Printed in the UK

Smart Mater. Struct. 30 (2021) 085038
logic gates are proposed as alternatives to electronic systems
because they can be embedded into soft robots [24–27], but
structures relying on the combination of basic logic gates
to implement operations are predictably complex. Embed-
ding signals mapped to specific responses into materials is a
solution to achieve simple manufacturing of soft robots with
entire flexibility and unconstraint [27, 28], but the challenge is
the gap between the continuity of materials and the discrete-
ness of computation [29]. Bistable or multistable structures,
which can usually produce snap-through [30] effects, are solu-
tions to connect continuous physics with discrete mathematics
[25, 26].
Bistable and multistable structures have been used for
energy storage materials [31], actuators [32], surface modific-
ation [33], valves [34], and are expected to be applied to soft
jumping robots, which are better at crossing complex terrain
than crawling robots [35]. However, the actuation mechanism
of soft jumping robots is often fuel explosion [36–39] and
magnetic actuation [11] rather than snap-through of bistable
structures as the jumping process is difficult to control and
repeat. In addition, previous studies on bistable structures have
often focused on the mechanical properties of the system in a
certain transformation process between two steady states [40],
while little attention has been paid to the unsteady transition
process of the system between two steady states. In terms of
energy landscape, most bistable or multistable systems can
only change from one steady state to another under external
stimulation, but the distribution of energy potential wells will
not change, which involves poor adaptability [28]. At present,
there is no research on using the unsteady snap-through of
bistable structures to enlarge the energy landscape difference
under different stimuli, so as to realize the self-decision ability
of the system.
In fact, some efforts have also been made to implement
the design of multiple stimulus response capabilities. Wang
et al [41] developed a soft actuator system of multi-layered
liquid crystal elastomers that can realize multi-directional
motion and different deformation modes. Specifically, the
actuator system is a layered structure composed of three
different types of liquid crystal elastomers, each of which
selectively responds to different wavelengths of light stimulus
and produces shrinkage deformation. This soft actuator sys-
tem can generate different deformation modes under differ-
ent wavelength bands of light to realize multi-mode motion.
However, the realization of this multi-mode motion function
depends on the selective absorption of light wavelength of the
liquid crystal elastomer, and thus it cannot be widely used in
most materials.
Here, 4D printing for continuous-fiber composites was car-
ried out to fabricate a soft jumping robot with a bistable
structure, and the robot can achieve different jumping modes,
which is called self-decision ability. The continuous fiber pat-
tern on the surface of the robot is programmed to produce
various deformation shapes [42], making the robot gener-
ate multiple jumping modes when snap-through occurs. Just
like the digital information of electronic devices written in
the chip, all the motion characteristics of the robot are writ-
ten in the fiber pattern on its body. Hence, the choice of
2
Q Wang et al
the motion modes does not require any additional auxiliary
means.
In this study, such a type of robot, whose deformation
process from one steady state to another is not unique but
is affected by external stimuli, was designed and prepared
so that it will generate self-decision motion according to the
external signal. It is worth mentioning that all the materials
used for preparing the soft robot reported here are not gen-
erally smart materials, and the generation of its self-decision
ability depends entirely on its structural design. Therefore,
our design method can be extended to a wide range of mater-
ial systems, stimulation conditions, and manufacturing scales.
The implementation method of self-decision ability proposed
in this work will be helpful in realizing intelligent responses
of a robot without electricity, and it is expected to produce
an entirely soft robot with adaptive motion ability without an
external power supply.
2. Structure design and theoretical analysis
2.1. Design of soft robot
To realize the self-decision function of a soft robot, we
developed a new 4D printing method to fabricate bistable
structures based on continuous fiber composites. The printing
nozzle can extrude continuous fiber and resin simultaneously
to print programmable patterns of fibers embedded in com-
posite materials. The structure of the robot is divided into the
deformation and energy storage areas, as shown in figure 1(a).
The fibers in the deformation area are distributed on the top
layer, causing the area to bend with a change in temperature
due to the different coefficients of thermal expansion of the
fiber and the resin. In the preparation process of the deform-
ation area, one heat treatment is carried out after printing the
pure resin on the bottom layer, and the other is carried out
after printing the fiber composite on the top layer. These two
heat treatments and the fiber pattern can affect the deformation
performance of the structure to realize the intelligent charac-
teristics of the robot, which will be shown later. In the pre-
paration process of the energy storage area, fibers are sym-
metrically distributed on the top and bottom surfaces to avoid
thermal deformation. After printing the structure, the middle
of the energy storage area was cut off with a length of d, and
the remaining parts were re-welded together to provide a pre-
compression force for the robot. In this way, the structure is
bistable, as the upper surface is bent outwards in one steady
state and inwards in the other steady state.
2.2. Theoretical analysis
In order to understand the robot’s response to high temper-
ature stimulation, it is necessary to carry out the thermody-
namic analysis of the structure first, so as to lay the found-
ation for the later dynamic analysis. The structure model of
robot can be simplified according to the appendix, so that
the equation of temperature distribution with time can be
obtained:
Smart Mater. Struct. 30 (2021) 085038 Q Wang et al

Figure 1. (a) Structure diagram of robot. (b) Influence of temperature on bistability. (c) Analysis of snap-through point. (d) Theoretical
calculation of the effect of precompression d on the jumping performance. (e) Theoretical calculation of the effect of temperature on the
jumping performance.

T|(τ,y) = Tcenter + γ(2y/H)2 (1) thermal stimulation temperature, heating time, and structural
parameters. Then, the result of equation (4) is substituted
where T center and γ are the coefficients related to heating into equation (2), and the minimum value of structural strain
temperature and heating time, and the detailed calculation energy is obtained by adjusting the coefficients:
process is shown in supplementary data (available online at [
stacks.iop.org/SMS/30/085038/mmedia). aφ C s
Furthermore, the variation of the total energy of the robot E= (C2u+C2v )Cs + (C2u + 2Cu Cv ) sin Cs + Cu Cv sin 2Cs
2L0
structure with time can be obtained. Deformation area and ]
energy storage area have the same equation form (as shown 1 2
in equation (2)), but the coefficients are different + Cv sin 3Cs
3
[ ]
ˆL 1 1 3
+ 2bφ Cu sin Cs + Cv sin Cs + cφ L0 (5)
e= (a0 k2 + a1 k + a2 )ds. (2) 2 3 2
0
According to equation (5), the strain energy of the robot can
In addition, deformation area and energy storage area have the be obtained, and the dynamic analysis reveals that the value
same length, so the following constraints need to be set: and distribution of two steady-state energy potential wells
 s  of the structure depend on the temperature stimuli. For the
ˆL ˆ
simplest robot with parallel fibers distributed on the surface
D = cos  k(s)ds ds. (3)
of the deformation area (see the detailed parameters in sup-
0 0 plementary data), the calculation result of the relationship
between structural strain energy and △L (=L0 − L) is shown
Then, the shape equation of the deformation area can be
in figure 1(b). The bistable structure has two different bend-
obtained with variational method:
ing directions, but the strain energy of the two steady states is
(ˆ )
′
different, which depends on the ambient temperature. When
k + C sin kds = 0 (4) the temperature is high enough, the energy potential well of
the initial steady state (the surface with the fiber bent to the
where k and s are the curvature and the arc length of the outside) becomes sufficiently small that the system directly
structure, respectively, and C is a constant that depends on the turns to the final steady state (the surface with the fiber bent to

3
Smart Mater. Struct. 30 (2021) 085038
the inside) with the energy storage greatly reduced in a very
short period of time, resulting in a snap-through phenomenon.
Figure 1(c) shows the calculation results for the change in arc
length of the body L and structural energy in the deformation
area when the heating stimulus is triggered, and the jump-
ing occurs when the body length reaches its maximum value.
Then, the energy difference between the two steady states of
the structure at this time can be calculated, and the energy
released in the snap-through process can be obtained. Theoret-
ical calculation of the influence of precompression d and tem-
perature on the jumping performance are shown in figures 1(d)
and (e).
3. Fabrication of soft robot
3.1. Materials
The soft jumping robot consisted of resin and continuous
fibers. The resin is polyamide 66 (PA 66, Spiders Corp., China)
and the fiber is aramid fiber (Sovetl Corp., China). The prop-
erties of PA 66 are listed in supplementary data.
3.2. Fabrication of the soft jumping robot
To prepare the soft jumping robot, a 3D printer for continuous
fiber-reinforced composites was built. The preparation process
of the soft jumping robot is shown in figure 2(a). The deform-
ation area of the robot was a bilayer structure with the bottom
layer of pure resin and the top layer of continuous fibers. The
bottom layer was printed first with a printing temperature of
280 ◦ C and printing speed of 9 mm s−1 . This 3D printed resin
layer was then placed in a drier (Lichen Corp., China) for the
first heat treatment during 2 min. After heat treatment, we put
the heat-treated resin layer back on the platform, and printed
continuous fibers on the surface of the resin layer according to
the programmed pattern with a printing temperature of 280 ◦ C
and printing speed of 1 mm s−1 . The 3D method for continu-
ous fiber-reinforced composites was reported in our earlier
study [43, 44]. The printed structure requires a second heat
treatment to remove internal stress, and a detailed explana-
tion of this is included in our previous studies [42]. Therefore,
we placed the 3D printed bilayer structure in the drier again
for the second heat treatment during 2 min. Then, we put the
heat-treated deformation area of the robot back on the plat-
form again and printed the energy storage area on it. Finally,
the middle of the energy storage area was cut off by a length
of d, and the remaining parts were re-welded together.
3.3. Dynamic mechanical analysis
A dynamic mechanical analyzer (DMA242E, Netzsch, Ger-
many) was used to determine the elastic modulus of the PA66
sample at different temperatures. The measured temperat-
ure increased from room temperature to 160 ◦ C at a rate of
3 ◦ C min−1 . The vibration frequency and amplitude were 1 Hz
and 100 µm, respectively. The relationship between the stor-
age modulus and temperature is shown in supplementary data.
4
Q Wang et al
3.4. Video recording
We used a high-speed camera (i-speed 210, iX Cameras, UK)
to shoot the jumping action of the soft robot.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Snap-through of bistable structures
The robot with parallel fibers distributed on the surface was
placed in a high temperature environment and its shape change
process was photographed, as shown in figure 2(b), and the
experimental results are in good agreement with the theoret-
ical results. When the robot is stimulated by heat, its centroid is
closer to the bottom of the body during the initial steady state.
When snap-through occurs, the centroid of the robot moves
upward in a short time, resulting in jumping behavior. The
energy storage of the robot decreased rapidly after the jumping
process, and the energy difference between these two steady
states is the jumping energy. The influence of ambient temper-
ature T f and prestrain d on the jumping performance is carried
out (figures 2(c) and (d)). The higher the ambient temperat-
ure is, the shorter the time required for the robot to jump. The
influence of heating temperature on the robot was complex.
An increase in ambient temperature can increase the energy
difference between the two steady states, but at the same time,
an excessive ambient temperature will significantly reduce the
modulus of the resin; therefore, there is a peak value of the
jumping energy against the temperature. Prestrain d also had a
significant impact on the jumping performance. When d is too
small, there is almost no precompression force in the struc-
ture, and hence the transition between the two states will be
smooth, and the jumping phenomenon will almost disappear.
With an increase in d, the jumping energy increases, which
means that the jumping height increases. However, the struc-
ture will be unable to enter the final steady state if d is excess-
ively large because the potential barrier would be extremely
high. It should be noted that the jumping motion is sometimes
irregular because the structure of the robot is symmetrical,
and a small asymmetry factor in the deformation process will
affect the jumping action. In addition, jumping experiments
were carried out 50 times on the robot, showing that the aver-
age jumping energy loss of the robot is small, as shown in
figure 2(e), which indicates that the jumping behavior of the
robot is repeatable.
4.2. Controlling motion modes by fiber pattern
Multimodal motion of the soft robot can be achieved by pro-
gramming and printing fiber patterns onto its surface. Here, a
simple forward jumping robot is taken as an example to intro-
duce the principle of forward motion. The fiber pattern con-
sists of a blank area length of L1 and a fiber length of L2 , as
shown in figures 3(a) and (b). When the robot is subjected to
a high-temperature environment, the deformation of the fiber
area L2 is active, while that of the blank area L1 is passive.
The deformation process is recorded (as shown in figure 3(c)),
Smart Mater. Struct. 30 (2021) 085038
Figure 2. (a) Preparation method of soft jumping robot. (b) Theoretical calculation and experimental results of structure shape while
jumping. (c) Experimental results of the effect of d on the jumping performance. (d) Experimental results of the effect of temperature on the
jumping performance. (e) Repeated jumps for 50 times.
showing that the fiber area will bend first, and the structure
will become S-shaped. When the body length reaches its max-
imum, the structure rapidly changes from the initial steady
state to the final steady state. A similar deformation process is
illustrated by the theoretical result shown in figure 3(d). In the
snap-through process, the main structural deformation is the
bending deformation of the blank area; thus, the jumping force
is asymmetric and accompanied by a moment, which drives
the robot to move forward.
As shown in figures 3(e) and (f), the length of precompres-
sion d determines the step length by affecting the difference
in energy between the two steady states, and the robot will
overturn owing to the excessive torque when d is too large. In
addition, the influence of the length of the blank area L1 on the
jumping performance is shown in figure 3(g). When the value
of L1 is small, the structure is almost symmetrical, and thus the
robot can barely move forward or backward during the jump-
ing process. When L1 is too large, the energy storage in the
deformation area of the structure is low, and thus there will
not be too much energy released during the jumping process.
5
Q Wang et al
As a result, there is a maximum forward step length with an
increase in L1 , while the time required for actuation always
decreases.
For the robot with a fiber pattern of parallel slashes, as
shown in figure 4(a), there is not only a moment to move for-
ward, but also a moment to make it turn left or turn right during
the unsteady jumping process because the fiber direction is not
parallel to the body direction of the robot, resulting in the rota-
tional jumping movement. The rotation direction of the robot
during jumping is indicated in figure 4(a), and its rotation dir-
ection can be controlled by adjusting the fiber deflection dir-
ection. The relationship between precompression length d and
rotation angle is tested as shown in figure 4(b), revealing that
the rotation angle increases with the increase in d until over-
turning occurs. In addition, an experiment on the effect of the
inclination angle of the fiber pattern on the jump performance
is also carried out, as presented in supplementary data. It is
obvious that when the value of d increases, the moment pro-
duced by the jump process increases, including the moment in
the front and back directions and the moment in the left and
Smart Mater. Struct. 30 (2021) 085038 Q Wang et al

Figure 3. (a) Structure diagram of the forward jumping robot. (b) Photograph of the forward jumping robot. (c) Structure shape before
jumping recording by video. (d) Structure shape before jumping by calculation. (e) Theoretical effect of precompression d on the forward
jumping performance. (f) Experimental result for the effect of precompression d on the forward jumping performance. (g) Effect of l1 on the
forward jumping performance.

right directions. In fact, a variety of motion modes including
forward movement, rotational movement, forward rotational
movement, lateral movement, oblique movement, and over-
turn movement can be achieved through the design of the fiber
pattern of the robot. Figure 4(c) shows the jumping actions of
robots with different fiber patterns.
4.3. Self-decision ability of soft jumping robots
The examples above seem to show that the fiber pattern
determines the motion mode of the robot, while other struc-
tural parameters or ambient temperature can only adjust the
motion amplitude under a specific motion mode. However,
in fact, the stimulation conditions represented by temperat-
ure can not only control the movement stride, but also con-
trol the movement mode. For the robot, the transformation
process between the initial state and the final state can be
divided into a steady-state deformation process and a tran-
sient unsteady-state process. In general, the robot will even-
tually reach the same final state even assuming that it can
produce two different shapes in the steady-state deformation
process under the stimulation different temperatures, show-
ing that there is no obvious difference in the motion of the
robot under different deformation processes. However, if the
snap-through of the robot in the transient instability pro-
cess is considered, the robot will generate different motion
modes under different stimuli, showing the self-decision abil-
ity. Specifically, the robot will jump in the opposite direction
in low temperature environment and high temperature envir-
onment, according to the previous analysis of the structural
moment.
Then, the robot needs to be able to generate two differ-
ent deformations under different temperature stimulation by
programming the fiber pattern. To achieve this goal, the body
of the robot is divided into two areas, A and B (as shown in
figure 5(a)), and the change in curvature of area A is greater
than that of area B under a relatively low temperature stim-
ulation, so it can change from positive to negative curvature
faster. The change in curvature of area B is greater than that of
area A under relatively high temperature stimulation, so there

6
Smart Mater. Struct. 30 (2021) 085038
Figure 4. (a) Fiber pattern for the rotation-movement robot. (b) Relationship between rotation angle and d. (c) Use of fiber pattern to realize
different motion schemes.
will be deformation interference between the two areas, and
area B can acquire negative curvature first, before the snap-
through, as long as the structural parameters are designed reas-
onably. The experimental results shown in supplementary data
illustrate that both heat treatment in the printing process and
fiber pattern can affect the relation curve of curvature versus
temperature, called the curvature line. The first heat treatment
reduces the intercept of the curvature line, while the second
heat treatment will improve it, and the slope of the curvature
line of the robot whose pattern is two rows of fibers with a
certain angle is higher than that of the robot whose pattern is
a row of parallel fibers. The structural parameters and printing
conditions of areas A and B are determined by these rules to
meet specific deformation requirements. The extensibility of
the self-decision function design based on the bistable snap-
through process comes from this fact. The type of material
and the external stimulation can be arbitrary as long as the
7
Q Wang et al
preparation process of the structure can make the two areas
of its structure meet the above-mentioned deformation rules.
The robot shown in figure 5(a) can meet the above deforma-
tion requirements and has a self-decision ability. The first and
second heat treatment temperatures of area A are 80 ◦ C and
200 ◦ C, respectively, whereas only the second heat treatment
was carried out for area B. The fiber pattern in area A is a
row of parallel fibers, and that in area B is two rows of fibers
with an angle of 60◦ . A detailed theoretical analysis of the
deformation process of this robot is presented in the materials
and methods section. As shown in figure 5(b), when the ambi-
ent temperature is 120 ◦ C, the curvature of area A becomes
negative first, causing the robot to jump to the right. When
the ambient temperature is 180 ◦ C, the curvature of area B
becomes negative first, causing the robot to jump to the left.
When the ambient temperature is 150 ◦ C, which is near the
critical temperature, areas A and B reach negative curvature
Smart Mater. Struct. 30 (2021) 085038 Q Wang et al

Figure 5. (a) Robot with self-decision ability. (b) Step length against ambient temperature for the self-decision structure. (c), (d) Jumping
processes of self-decision robots. (e) The robot with first heat treatment temperature of 120 ◦ C only jumps to the right. (f) The robot with
first heat treatment temperature of room temperature only jumps to the left.

almost at the same time, and thus the robot jumps nearly in
place. The law of the required response time for snap-through
is consistent with that of previous robots. The robot can choose
the motion mode (jump to the right or to the left) rather than
motion stride according to different external stimuli without
human intervention, showing self-decision ability. The self-
decision jump of the robot was recorded (shown in figures 5(c)
and (d)). Because the recording environment is not convenient
for convection heating, we use irradiation heating instead, and
use the distance between the irradiation lamp and the robot to
control the ambient temperature.
From this example, it can be observed that with the prin-
ciple of self-decision ability, this robot can produce different
shapes under different external stimulus conditions, thus gen-
erating different energy landscapes. This difference is amp-
lified by the unsteady snap-through process, resulting in two
or more selective motion modes. Therefore, it is important to
choose the appropriate manufacturing parameters of the jump-
ing robot, which will determine the critical temperature of the
two different motion modes. For example, when the first heat
treatment temperature of area A increases, the intercept of its
curvature line will decrease, so that the intersection of the
curvature line of area A and that of area B moves to a higher
temperature, resulting in an increase in the critical temperat-
ure. Although the critical temperature is not equal to the tem-
perature at the intersection of the two curvature lines, they are
positively correlated. However, the previous theoretical and
experimental results show that the snap-through will almost
not occur if the actuating temperature is too high or too low
(shown in figure 2(d)). Therefore, if the temperature of the
first heat treatment is too high, the robot will not have self-
decision ability owing to its high critical temperature, but it

8
Smart Mater. Struct. 30 (2021) 085038 Q Wang et al

Figure 6. (a) Influence of temperature on bistability of the repetitive jumping robot. (b) Jumping height of the repetitive jumping robot in
each jumping process. (c) The forward jumping robot will continuously move forward with a process of repeated heating and cooling, if it is
optimized to be able to jump repetitively. (d) Rotational jumping robot optimized to be able to jump repetitively.

9
Smart Mater. Struct. 30 (2021) 085038
will always jump in the same direction. Figure 5(e) shows that
the robot can only jump to the right when the first heat treat-
ment temperature of region A is 120 ◦ C. Conversely, if the
composite is not heat treated during the preparation process,
which is equivalent to the heat treatment temperature of room
temperature, the robot will always jump to the left, as shown in
figure 5(f).
4.4. Repetitive jumping ability
Most snap-through structures can only produce one transition
between two or more steady states, usually from the steady-
state potential well with higher energy to that with lower
energy. Then, they must be manually reset to restore the sys-
tem from the low-energy state to the high-energy state. How-
ever, the jumping motion of a soft jumping robot must be
repeatable. The characteristic of the robot in this study is that
the temperature stimulation determines the energy landscape
rather than the position of the steady-state potential well of
the system under a specific energy landscape. The energy
landscape against the body length of the robot is shown in
figure 1(c), which illustrates that the relationship between the
first steady state and the second steady state changes gradu-
ally with the increase in temperature. The energy of the initial
steady state is higher than that of the second steady state when
the temperature is relatively low, and the energy of the initial
steady state is lower than that of the second steady state when
the temperature is relatively high. However, this is not a suf-
ficient condition for the structure to transform between steady
states. As shown in figure 1(c), it is still necessary to cross a
small but not negligible energy barrier to return from the final
steady state to the initial steady state at 40 ◦ C.
Therefore, the structure of the robot is further optimized
through a reduction in the structural stiffness of the deform-
ation area achieved by reducing the number of fiber bundles,
narrowing the structure width, and eliminating the first heat
treatment to make the curvature line move to the right. The
energy landscape of the optimized structure is shown in
figure 6(a), which reveals that the structure will no longer
experience an energy barrier in the process of returning from
the final steady state to the initial steady state under a temper-
ature of 40 ◦ C, and therefore, the jumping robot can recover
its original shape after the ambient temperature drops to room
temperature. Figure 6(b) shows the jumping height of the
repeated jumping robot for each jump. It can be observed
that the height of each jump is basically stable. The jump-
ing motion of any type of robot can be repeated, and the
jumping results of the forward and rotational jumping robots
were tested, as shown in supplementary data. If the forward
jumping robot is optimized to be able to jump repetitively, it
will continuously move forward with a process of repeated
heating and cooling, as shown in figure 6(c). If the rota-
tional jumping robot is optimized to be able to jump repet-
itively, it can eventually turn in any direction, as shown in
figure 6(d).
10
Q Wang et al
5. Conclusion
In summary, we developed a 4D printing method for
continuous-fiber composites and designed a soft jumping
robot with self-decision ability, whose structure consists of
deformation and energy storage areas. The robot can gener-
ate snap-through phenomena under temperature stimulation
because of its bistable characteristics, and it can produce a
variety of jumping movements controlled by the design of the
fiber pattern, such as forward, rotational, overturn, and oblique
jumping. The jumping motion can be controlled and be repetit-
ive by adjusting the 4D printing parameters during the prepar-
ation process. In addition, not only can the jumping amplitude
be controlled, but also the jumping mode can be controlled
owing to its self-decision ability.
Data availability statement
All data that support the findings of this study are included
within the article (and any supplementary files).
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by National Key R&D Program of
China (2017YFB1103401, 2016YFB1100902), National Nat-
ural Science Foundation of China (51575430, 51811530107),
and the support of K C Wong Education Foundation.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
ORCID iD
Qingrui Wang  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7884-2895
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