SOFT ROBOTICS

Volume 00, Number 00, 2019

ª Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
DOI: 10.1089/soro.2018.0124

A Versatile Soft Crawling Robot with Rapid Locomotion

Lei Qin,1,* Xinquan Liang,1,2,* Hui Huang,3 Chee Kong Chui,1 Raye Chen-Hua Yeow,2 and Jian Zhu1

Abstract
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This article presents a versatile soft crawling robot capable of rapid and effective locomotion. The robot mainly
consists of two vacuum-actuated spring actuators and two electrostatic actuators. By programming the actuation
sequences of different actuators, the robot is able to achieve two basic modes of locomotion: linear motion and
turning. Subsequently, we have developed analytical models to interpret the static actuation performance of the
robot body, including linear and bending motions. Moreover, an empirical dynamic model is also developed to
optimize the locomotion speed in terms of frequency and duty cycle of the actuation signal. Furthermore, with
the help of the strong electroadhesion force and fast response of the deformable body, the soft robot achieves a
turning speed of 15.09/s, which is one of the fastest among existing soft crawling robots to the best of our
knowledge. In addition to the rapid and effective locomotion, the soft crawling robot can also achieve multiple
impressive functions, including obstacle navigation in confined spaces, climbing a vertical wall with a speed of
6.67 mm/s (0.049 body length/s), carrying a payload of 69 times its self-weight on a horizontal surface, crossing
over a 2 cm (0.15 body length) gap, and kicking a ball.

Keywords: soft crawling robots, vacuum actuation, electroadhesion, rapid locomotion, versatile

Introduction developed with different materials and actuation mechanisms.

S oft robotics has attracted much interest over the past
decade due to their impressive attributes, including in-
herent compliance, unprecedented agility, and infinite de-
grees of freedom.1,2 Built of soft materials, soft robots can
withstand external impacts, which enables them to work ef-
fectively in unstructured and harsh environments.3 Another
benefit of employing soft materials leads to a much simpler
robotic structure, as mechanical components such as rigid
links and joints that are extensively employed in the tradi-
tional robots are not required for soft robots.4 In addition,
with excellent resilience, soft robots can achieve muscle-like
actuation and mimic the behavior of soft biological systems
much better compared with traditional rigid-bodied robots.5
Many impressive soft robots inspired by soft-bodied ani-
mals such as octopus,6,7 caterpillar,8–12 and jellyfish13–15
have been developed in the literature, of which soft crawling
robots are particularly interesting due to their potential ap-
plications as surveillance robots in complex environments. In
the past decade, many kinds of soft crawling robots have been
In particular, as one of the very first soft crawling robots, a
quadrupedal soft robot was proposed by Shepherd et al.2 By
combining crawling and undulation paces, this multigait robot
could navigate difficult obstacles. Later, Tolley et al.3 devel-
oped an untethered version of this robot, which could work in
tough environments. In addition, vacuum-driven pneumatic
actuators have been employed in soft crawling robots as well.
Robertson and Paik16 designed a modular soft robot using
vacuum-powered soft pneumatic actuators, which can achieve
crawling and rolling locomotion. Other smart actuators have
also been used to develop soft crawling robots, such as shape
memory alloys (SMAs),10,17,18 ionic polymer metal compos-
ites,19,20 as well as dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs).21–23
These soft crawling robots achieve locomotion either through
the mechanism of asymmetric friction or the coordination of
several soft actuators, both of which are not effective, espe-
cially during turning motions.
Recently, the use of electrostatic actuators to generate
asymmetric friction forces has become popular for some
DEA-based soft crawling robots since they can generate

Departments of 1Mechanical Engineering and 2Biomedical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
3
Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology, Singapore, Singapore.
*These authors contributed equally to this work.

1
 2 QIN ET AL.

reversible adhesion forces.21,22 With strong electroadhesion
forces, these soft crawling robots are able to achieve effective
and steady motion without slippage. However, the small
deformation and output force of the robot body greatly
limit the locomotion speed and payload ability of the ro-
bots. Moreover, Wu et al.24 improved the locomotion effi-
ciency of the quadrupedal soft robot by coupling the
electrostatic actuators on the feet. The robot could even
walk on a 30 inclined metal surface with the use of the
electrostatic actuators. However, the out-of-plane defor-
mation of the robot body induces air gap between the
electrostatic actuators and the attached surface, which
decreases the efficiency of the electrostatic actuators and
makes the locomotion ineffective.
In this article, we have developed a versatile soft crawling
robot that consists of two vacuum-actuated spring actuators
(VASAs) as the robot body and two electrostatic actuators as
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spaces, climbing a vertical wall with a speed of 6.67 mm/s
(0.049 body length/s), carrying a payload of 69 times its self-
weight, crossing over a 2 cm (0.15 body length) gap, and
kicking a ball, are demonstrated by this soft crawling robot.
Materials and Methods
Mechanical design of the soft crawling robot
As shown in Figure 1A, the soft crawling robot mainly
consists of two VASAs as the robot body and two electro-
static actuators as the robot feet. The VASA contains a
compression spring enclosed in an airproof bladder made of
thermoplastic polyurethane-coated polyester fabric. A thin
silicone tube is employed to connect the fabric bladder with a
vacuum pump for pneumatic actuation. The use of a fabric-
based body and thin silicone tubes makes the robot body
susceptible to tears by sharp objects; therefore, the contact

the robot feet (Fig. 1A). Compared with the existing soft
crawling robots, our robot is superior in terms of locomotion
speed and efficiency due to the large deformation and fast
response of the VASA. For example, the soft crawling robot
achieves a turning speed of 15.09/s, which is one of the
fastest among existing soft crawling robots to the best of our
knowledge. Furthermore, the steady locomotion and simple
structure of the VASA allow for the development of analyt-
ical models, which can be used to interpret and optimize the
actuation performance of the robot. Finally, multiple im-
pressive functions, including obstacle navigation in confined
with sharp objects should be avoided. When subjected to
vacuum pressure, the actuator contracts along the axial di-
rection. Similar vacuum-driven actuators that incorporate
different skeletons such as origami structures25 or foams16
were also reported in the literature. Compared with the ori-
gami structures, the use of compression springs as the skel-
eton enables a quick recovery for the actuator to its original
state after vacuum pressure is removed. Moreover, the
compression spring also constrains the radial deformation of
the actuator and leads to a linear motion, which is challenging
to achieve for the foam-based vacuum actuator.

FIG. 1. Schematic of the soft crawling robot. (A) The robot consists of two VASAs and two electrostatic actuators. Made
of compression spring and fabric bladder, the VASAs contract linearly at actuated state. (B) Actuation sequence of electrical
or vacuum signals on each actuator for the robot locomotion. The red line indicates that the electrical or vacuum signal is
applied to the respective robot foot or body, whereas the blue line indicates no voltage or vacuum is applied. (C) Schematic
of the forward locomotion of the soft crawling robot by following the actuation sequence in (B). VASAs, vacuum-actuated
spring actuators. Color images are available online.
 A VERSATILE SOFT CRAWLING ROBOT
Besides the VASAs, the electrostatic actuators also play an
important role in the robot locomotion. As shown in
Figure 1A, the electrostatic pad consists of two parallel
compliant electrodes (silver nanowire) and a dielectric layer
(polyurethane). When subjected to voltage, positive and
negative charges accumulate on the two electrodes, respec-
tively. If the actuator approaches a dielectric surface, the
electric field generated by the two electrodes induces di-
electric polarization to form surface charges. The presence of
the dielectric layer prevents the surface charges from neu-
tralizing with those on the electrodes. These opposite charges
attract each other, which leads to electroadhesion force be-
tween the actuator and the dielectric surface. When the
voltage is off, the induced charges disappear quickly, which
results in fast and reversible adhesion. Compared with other
adhesion technologies such as suction cups,26 microspines,27
and gecko-inspired adhesives,28–30 electrostatic actuators are
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lightweight, simple-structured, and robust for various types
of surfaces including glass, wood, paper, and metal.31,32
It is difficult to assemble the robot body and robot feet
directly because of the different shaped interfaces. Therefore,
two flat foot stands with round caps are employed to link the
robot body and feet. The caps and the foot stands are three-
dimensional (3D) printed using VeroClear (Object 260).
Small bearings are placed in between the caps and the foot
stands to allow the round caps to rotate freely. This is because
other than axial contraction, the VASA also experiences a
twisting motion due to the coil property, which makes the feet
rotate and decreases the electroadhesion efficiency.
Locomotion mechanism
The two VASAs are actuated by an external vacuum pump
(V-i140SV, Value) that is connected to the robot via flexible
tubes at one end near the rear foot. Upon actuation, the VASA
contracts to an actuated state that increases with the applied
percentage of vacuum (Fig. 1A). Meanwhile, the two elec-
trostatic actuators are charged from an external voltage am-
plifier (EMCO CA60, XP Power) with maximum voltage
FIG. 2. Demonstration of the two basic modes of locomotion. (A) A sequence of images of the soft robot crawling in
two directions. The arrows indicate the direction of motion. (B) A sequence of images of the soft robot turning in two
directions. The arrows indicate the direction of motion. The red rectangles on the insets (at the bottom right corner)
indicate which actuators are currently actuated; gray rectangles represent deactivation of the actuators. Color images are
available online.
3
rating at 6 kV. Upon actuation, the induced electroadhesion
force increases the friction force between the foot and the
attached substrate. The four actuators are controlled simul-
taneously by an external electrical circuit shown in Supple-
mentary Figure S1. By actuating the four actuators with
different sequences, we demonstrate two fundamental modes
of locomotion: linear and turning motion.
As illustrated in Figure 1B, the linear motion involves
three steps: (1) Activation of the rear foot anchors the robot
from sliding backward. (2) Activation of the front foot and
deactivation of the rear foot simultaneously create an asym-
metrical friction force between the front and rear foot of the
robot, which leads to forward movement when the robot body
contracts at the same time. (3) The third step repeats the first
step with the robot body and front foot deactivated and
the rear foot activated. The restoring force generated by the
compression spring pushes the front foot forward while
the rear foot adheres to ground. Repeating the actuation
sequence, the soft robot moves to the right continuously.
Figure 1C schematically demonstrates the movement of the
robot by following this actuation sequence in Figure 1B.
Due to the fast and reversible adhesion force generated by
the feet, the soft robot is capable of moving toward another
direction by simply reversing the actuation sequence of the
front and rear foot. Figure 2A shows a sequence of images
when the robot achieves forward and backward movement.
The small schematic inset at the bottom right corner of each
frame indicates the actuation states of the actuators at the
corresponding step. A video showing the bidirectional linear
motion of the robot is available in Supplementary Movie S1.
The maximum speed the soft robot achieved with optimized
actuation signals is around 16.29 mm/s (0.12 body length/s),
which is comparable to or even higher than that of some other
soft crawling robots based on vacuum actuator (0.08 body
length/s),16 pneumatic actuators (0.2 body length/s),2 or
SMA (0.018 body length/s).17
In addition to linear movement, this soft robot can also
achieve turning motion. When both VASAs are actuated with
vacuum, the robot can achieve linear motion, as discussed
 4 QIN ET AL.
earlier. However, when only one of the VASAs is actuated,
the robot turns due to the constraint imposed by the other
VASA. The detailed turning performance will be discussed
later. The actuation sequences for the turning motion are
similar to those of the linear motion in Figure 1B except that
only one VASA is actuated and follows the rear foot signal.
For example, by following the actuation sequences in the
insets of Figure 2B, the robot turns clockwise when only the
right VASA is activated. Similarly, the robot turns anticlock-
wise by actuating the left VASA only while keeping the
actuation signals unchanged for the front and rear foot. Sup-
plementary Movie S2 demonstrates the turning motion of the
robot. Figure 2B shows the captured images of the robot from
this turning motion. The robot first makes a clockwise turn and
then reserves the turning direction. The two basic modes of
locomotion generated through a simple sequence of binary
actuations greatly improve the mobility of the soft robot,
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which builds the foundation for more complex movement
and further enhances its potential for practical applications
especially as a surveillance robot.
Theoretical Modeling of the Robot Body
Static modeling of the VASA
As mentioned earlier, the robot body can achieve both
linear and bending motion when subjected to vacuum pres-
sure. The deformation of the body depends on the vacuum
pressure as well as the property of the spring. In this section,
static analysis is established to understand the relation be-
tween the input vacuum pressure and the corresponding de-
formation.
Linear deformation
For linear deformation, both VASAs exhibit identical de-
formation under the same actuation pressure, hence only one
actuator is considered in this section to analyze the linear
deformation Dx upon vacuum pressure DP. Figure 3 shows
the simplified schematic of the VASA with its initial geo-
metrical parameters: the original length L0, the wire diameter
d, and the outer diameter of the spring D. We define the
FIG. 3. Section view of the sim-
plified schematic of the VASA with
geometrical parameters. The dark
curve in the enlarged section rep-
resents the fabric bladder.
distance between two adjacent coils as P0 ¼ ðL0  LSH Þ=n,
where n is the number of active coils and LSH is the
solid height. After compression, the distance becomes
Pd ¼ ðL0  LSH  DxÞ=n. We assume that the fabric is
nonstretchable, hence it sags between the coils and forms an
arc with a depth of h as illustrated in Figure 3. This arc reduces
the equivalent area that the vacuum pressure exerts on. There-
fore, the force equilibrium between the applied vacuum pressure
and the spring force gives the governing equation as:
 2
D
DPp  h ¼ kDx, (1)
2
where k is the spring constant.
Now P0 becomes the length of this arc as we assume that
the fabric is not stretchable and Pd is the respective chord
length. The radius and angle of the arc are defined as R and h
as shown in Figure 3. Based on the geometrical relationship,
the distance between two adjacent coils can be rewritten as:
P0 ¼ 2Rh and Pd ¼ 2R sin h. The depth of the arc can be
calculated as h ¼ R  R cos h ¼ P0 (1  cos h)=ð2hÞ.
Hence the deformation can be derived as
Dx ¼ nP0  2nR sin h: (2)
Substituting Equation (2) into the governing equation, it
becomes
 2  
D P0 nP0
DPp  ð1  cos hÞ ¼ k nP0  sin h : (3)
2 2h h
Therefore, the relation between DP and h can be obtained
by solving Equation (3) numerically. We can further derive
the deformation of the spring upon vacuum pressure based on
Equation (2).
To verify the analytical model and identify the most suit-
able spring for the soft crawling robot, we conducted ex-
periments on four VASAs with different compression
springs. These springs have the same outer dimensions (L0
and D) but differ in spring constant, wire diameter, and
 A VERSATILE SOFT CRAWLING ROBOT
number of active coils. The properties of the springs are de-
tailed in Supplementary Table S1. The robot body was first
placed on the table with one end fixed to the ground. A
vacuum pump with maximum 87% vacuum was used as the
power source. The output vacuum pressure was controlled by
a vacuum regulator (IRV10 Series, SMC) and a digital sensor
(ZSE30A Series, SMC). Upon actuation, the deformation of
the robot body was measured with a laser sensor (ILD 1700,
MicroEpsilon), and the data were collected with a sampling
frequency of 100 Hz through a data acquisition device (USB-
6363, National Instrument). Vacuum pressure was slowly
applied to the body from 0 to 85 kPa at a step of 5 kPa. The
data were recorded when the deformation of the robot body
was stable. Three trials were conducted for each VASA, and
the results are plotted in Figure 4.
Figure 4 shows the comparison between the theoretical and
experimental results for the four VASAs under different
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vacuum pressures. The deformation scales with the applied
vacuum pressure and exhibits some nonlinearity especially
when the spring constant is small. This nonlinearity mainly
comes from the distortion of the fabric. As vacuum pressure
increases, the fabric sags deeper into the springs, thus the
effective area of the vacuum pressure is reduced, leading to a
decreasing gradient. This nonlinearity decreases as the spring
constant increases (from Spring A to Spring D). The reason is
that the distance between two coils P0 becomes smaller,
leading to a smaller sag depth h even under high vacuum
pressure, thus the effective area does not change much
throughout the applied vacuum pressure range. In addition,
we can also conclude from Figure 4 that the robot body with
smaller spring constant generates larger deformation under
the same vacuum pressure. Hence, Spring A is employed in
our soft robot in the following sections to achieve fast loco-
motion. The theoretical results agree well with the experi-
5
mental results. The small discrepancy mainly comes from the
inaccurate assumption of the circular sagging. In practice, the
fabric has some creases between two adjacent coils because
the overall length of the fabric along the perimeter does not
change (Supplementary Movie S1). Hence, the actual effec-
tive area for the vacuum pressure is slightly larger than our
assumptions.
Bending deformation
We build an analytical model for the bending motion of the
robot body. Figure 5 shows the simplified schematic of the
robot body and the free body diagram of the top 3D printed
component during the bending motion. When only VASA 1
is actuated, the contraction of the actuator exerts a force F1 to
the 3D printed component; meanwhile VASA 2 generates a
force F2 to the 3D printed component as well. Besides, there
is a bending moment M generated from the bending of the
two springs. From the force and moment equilibrium, we can
conclude that F1 ¼ F2 and M ¼ F1 Ds, where Ds is the dis-
tance between the centerlines of the two VASAs as shown in
Figure 5. In addition, the lateral bending moment of a spring
can also be calculated using the following equation33:
Ed 4
Ms ¼ a ¼ k2 a, (4)
32nð2 þ  ÞD
where E, d, n, m, and D are the inherent properties of the
spring and can be grouped as a spring bending coefficient k2.
The bending angle a shown in Figure 5 is defined as the angle
between the top and bottom 3D printed surfaces. Thus, the
bending moment M can be rewritten as M ¼ 2k2 a, and sub-
sequently, the relationship between the force and the bending
angle can be written as:
FIG. 4. Linear deformation
of the robot body as a function
of the applied vacuum pres-
sure. Four different VASAs
with an increasing spring con-
stant (from Spring A to Spring
D) are employed to measure
the vacuum-induced deforma-
tion. The square markers rep-
resent the experimental data,
and the solid curve represents
the theoretical result.
 6 QIN ET AL.

kDx1 Ds
a¼ : (7)
kDs2 þ 2k2

We further assume that the previous relation for linear

deformation still holds during the bending motion, then the
governing equation for VASA 1 can be written as:
 2
D
DPp h ¼ kDx1 þ F1 : (8)
2

Substituting Equations (5) and (7) into the governing

Equation (8), we have
 2
D 2k2 k
DPp h ¼ kDx1 þ Dx1 : (9)
2 kDs2 þ 2k2
FIG. 5. The simplified schematic of the robot body and
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the free body diagram of the top three-dimensional printed
component during the bending motion. The right VASA is
named as VASA 1 and the left one is VASA 2.
2k2 a
F1 ¼ F2 ¼ : (5)
Ds
From the geometrical relationship, we have
L0  Dx2 L0  Dx1
 ¼ Ds, (6)
a a
where Dx1 and Dx2 are the deformation of the two VASAs,
respectively. We assume that Hook’s law still holds for the
two springs. Substituting Dx2 ¼ F2 =k and Equation (5) into
Equation (6), we can derive the bending angle a as:
By solving this equation numerically, we can get the re-
lation between the input vacuum pressure DP and the bending
angle a.
Experiments on bending angles at different pressures were
conducted to validate the bending model. As before, four
robots with different springs were employed in our experi-
ment. The rear foot of the robot was fixed on the table, and
only one VASA was actuated. The vacuum pressure was
applied from 0 to 85 kPa, and pictures were taken at each
5 kPa step using a high-resolution camera (6D Mark II, Ca-
non) after the bending angle was stabilized. The images were
processed through software (Tracker, Open Source Physics)
to output the bending angles. Three trials were performed for
each robot. The results are shown in Figure 6.
As shown in Figure 6, when subjected to vacuum pressure,
the bending angle follows a similar trend as the linear de-
formation. It can be observed that VASA with smaller spring
constant experiences larger bending angle under the same

FIG. 6. Bending angle of

the robot body as a function of
the applied vacuum pressure.
Four different VASAs of in-
creasing spring constants
(from Spring A to Spring D)
are employed to measure the
bending angles under differ-
ent vacuum pressures. The
square markers represent the
experimental data, and the
curve represents the theo-
retical result.
 A VERSATILE SOFT CRAWLING ROBOT
vacuum pressure due to the small restoring force generated
by the spring. In addition, the gradient of bending angle for
the same VASA also decreases when the vacuum pressure
becomes higher due to fabric sagging effect. The maximum
bending angle is around 61 when spring A is actuated with
85% vacuum. The large bending angle ensures the robot to
achieve fast turning speed, which will be discussed later. The
good agreement between the experimental and theoretical
results demonstrates that the analytical model can accurately
predict the bending performance of the robot body.
Speed optimization
There are many parameters that can affect the speed of the
robot, for example, the input vacuum pressure, the properties
of compression springs, and the actuation signals. As dis-
cussed earlier in Figure 4, larger vacuum pressure leads to
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larger deformation for VASA with smaller spring constant.
Therefore, we adopt two Spring A and 87% vacuum for the
soft robot to achieve larger linear speed. In this section, we
mainly focus on optimizing the square actuation signal for
larger linear speed. The square actuation signal contains two
input variables, namely frequency and duty cycle. The fre-
quency of the linear locomotion is the inverse of the period,
which decides the actuation time in each cycle. Each period
comprises two phases: loading and unloading phases. In the
loading phase, the vacuum pressure is applied to actuate the
body; the vacuum pressure is released for the body to elon-
gate during the unloading phase. Duty cycle is defined as the
percentage of the loading time in one period.
Step response
To find the optimized actuation frequency and duty cycle,
it is important to know the step response of the robot body
when subjected to a step signal. The same experimental setup
for the static linear deformation was employed to study the
step response of the robot body. Figure 7A shows the actu-
ation signal used for the test. Ten trials were conducted for
FIG. 7. The step response of the robot body. (A) The step
input signal starts at t = 2 s and ends at t = 12 s. (B) The de-
formation curve of the robot body under the actuation signal
in (A). The two dashed lines represent the two equilib-
rium deformation states when the robot achieves steady
locomotion.
7
the robot body. The averaged step response curve of the body
is plotted in Figure 7B. Since the error is very small, error bar
is not shown here.
As shown in Figure 7B, the full loading phase (rising) takes
about 5 s to reach the maximum deformation and the un-
loading phase (dropping) takes about 8 s. Since most of the
rising and dropping are accomplished within 2 s, it is not
efficient for the robot to achieve fast speed if the actuation
frequency is too small. Given a fixed frequency and duty
cycle, the deformation of the robot body in the loading and
unloading phases should be the same if steady locomotion is
achieved, as denoted by the two dashed lines in Figure 7B.
The intersection points between the two dashed lines and the
step response curve represent the equilibrium deformation
states in the loading and unloading phases. We define the
maximum and minimum deformation of the robot during the
steady locomotion to be y1 and y2, and the starting and ending
time of the loading and unloading phases are t1, t2 and t3, t4,
respectively. We further assume that the robot body follows
the same loading/unloading curve in the step response during
steady locomotion. Therefore, the loading (tl) and unloading
(tu) time can be calculated as t2  t1 and t4  t3 , respectively.
The distance (L) traveled by the robot in one cycle is y2  y1 .
The frequency and duty cycle of the locomotion can then be
represented as f ¼ 1=ðtl þ tu Þ and DC ¼ tl =ðtl þ tu Þ ¼ tl  f ,
respectively. Finally, the average speed (v) of the robot can be
calculated as v ¼ L  f . Therefore, we can derive the speed of
the robot at a specific frequency and duty cycle if we know
the maximum and minimum deformation y1 and y2 in steady
locomotion.
To get y1 and y2, we first need to obtain empirical equations
for the loading and unloading curves. By fitting the experi-
mental data, the fitting functions for the loading and un-
loading curves can be obtained as shown in Supplementary
Figure S2. Hence, the following equality needs to be satisfied
in order for the robot to achieve steady locomotion.
Yl ðt1 Þ ¼ Yu ðt4 Þ (10)
Yl ðt2 Þ ¼ Yu ðt3 Þ: (11)
Equations (10) and (11) can be solved numerically to ob-
tain the speed of the robot. In our numerical solution, the
frequency is limited from 0.1 to 2.0 Hz and the duty cycle
ranges from 0% to 100%.
Two sets of experiments were conducted to verify the
model. The first set of experiments fixed the actuation fre-
quency to be 1 Hz and varied the duty cycle from 0% to
100%. The second set fixed the duty cycle to be 50% while
changing the frequency from 0.1 to 2 Hz. In the experiments,
the soft robot crawled on a flat wooden surface. Laser sensor
was used to capture the crawling distance of the robot. The
average speed of the robot was calculated over three steady
continuous cycles during the locomotion. Figure 8 shows the
speed of the robot at 1 Hz frequency and 50% duty cycle. It
can be observed that the theoretical model can accurately
predict the experimental results.
As shown in Figure 8A, when frequency is fixed at 1 Hz,
the speed first increases with the increasing duty cycle and
then decreases to zero. In our experiment, the maximum
speed achieved is 16.29 mm/s, and it happens when duty
 8 QIN ET AL.
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FIG. 8. (A) The speed of the robot as a function of the duty cycle when the actuation frequency is fixed to be 1 Hz. (B)
The speed of the robot as a function of the actuation frequency when the duty cycle is fixed to be 50%. The blue points
represent the experimental data, and the black curve represents the theoretical result. (C) The speed of the robot as a
function of the actuation frequency and duty cycle. Color images are available online.

cycle equals 70%. The model predicts that the maximum
speed at 1 Hz occurs when the duty cycle equals 66%, which
is very close to the experimental observation. Figure 8B
shows that when duty cycle is fixed at 50%, the speed in-
creases as the frequency increases. The speed of the robot
increases fairly rapidly when the frequency is below 1 Hz.
After 1 Hz, the speed increases with a much slower pace. The
reason is that when the frequency is small, the deformation of
the body tends to cover a larger deformation range, which
may include the small gradient region in Figure 7B, thus
leading to a smaller gradient.
Despite the good prediction, the theoretical results are
still slightly larger than the experimental results. The in-
accuracy of the model mainly comes from two aspects. First,
in our model, we assume that the adhesion feet can adhere to
the surface instantly once activated. While in practice, the
robot foot needs a very short time to establish the adhesion
force due to the charging/discharging process.22 As a result,
slight slippage occurs in the locomotion, which leads to a
smaller speed compared with the theoretical result. Another
aspect lies in that the deflation/inflation conversion process
is ignored in the model, whereas in practice there is con-
version time between deflation and inflation due to the air
inertia.
Figure 8C is the color map of all frequency and duty cycle
combinations within the specified ranges. From this color
map, we can observe that when the duty cycle approaches to
0% or 100%, the robot speed approaches to zero no matter
what the frequency is. This is because the extreme duty cycle
limits the loading or unloading time to an extreme small
value, which inevitably decreases the deformation of the
body. In addition, the color map of the speed is not sym-
metrical about the 50% duty cycle line and larger speed
concentrates in the region between 60% and 70% duty cycle.
This can be attributed to the different loading and unloading
characteristics of the robot body. As shown in Figure 7B, the
absolute gradient of the unloading curve is slightly larger at
higher actuation frequency compared with the loading curve,
 A VERSATILE SOFT CRAWLING ROBOT 9

Turning
To characterize the turning performance, a turning signal
with a frequency of 0.5 Hz and 87% vacuum was applied to
the robot. The turning motion was then recorded with a high-
resolution camera at 50 frames per second. The turning angle
is defined as the angle between the edge of the front foot and
the horizontal line as shown in the insets of Figure 9. By
processing the video frames using Tracker, we extracted the
turning angle of the robot with respect to time as shown in
Figure 9. This experiment was conducted with four different
actuation frequencies, and the results can be found in Sup-
plementary Figure S3. It can be calculated that the maximum
turning speed is around 15.09/s when the actuation fre-
quency is 0.5 Hz. In addition, the rotation center almost re-
mains in the same place, which can be observed from
Supplementary Movie S2. The small turning radius together
FIG. 9. The experimental results of the turning angle as a with the fast turning speed empowers the soft crawling robot
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function of time. The insets show representative images of
the soft robot during the turning motion.
thus requiring less time to achieve the same deformation for
the unloading process.
The analytical models developed in this section further
enhanced our understanding on the working mechanism of
the VASA. As derived from the model, compression springs
with smaller spring constant could generate large actuation
deformation, leading to fast linear and turning motion of the
robot. In addition, the models also helped us to visualize the
counterintuitive asymmetrical effects of the actuation signals
on the locomotion speed. The good agreement of the pre-
dicted results with the experimental data also allows us to
apply the models to design the actuation signals given the
desired locomotion speed.
Capabilities of the Soft Crawling Robot
As discussed earlier, the soft robot is capable of both linear
and turning locomotion, thus has the potential to navigate
through obstacles in confined spaces. In addition, the use of
electrostatic actuators not only ensures steady locomotion but
also helps the robot to move on inclined surfaces. In this
section, we will discuss the capabilities of the soft robot in
terms of the fast turning, obstacle navigation, wall climbing,
payload capability, and so on.
to work in confined spaces.
The overall turning speed of a soft crawling robot is the
product of the effective turning angle in one cycle and
the actuation frequency. For some crawling robots,3,10,34,35
the turning angle generated in one cycle is quite large but
can be adversely affected by slippage, which decreases the
effective turning angle in one cycle. Moreover, the actuation
frequency for these robots is also limited due to the slow
cooling rate of SMA or the long response time of the pneu-
matic actuators. As a result, the turning speed is quite slow
for these robots. While other crawling robots21–23 have a
higher actuation frequency, the small effective turning angle
still limits their turning speed. In contrast, our soft crawling
robot is one of the fastest in terms of turning speed (Table 1),
owing to the use of electroadhesion to enhance the effective
turning angle and the use of compression springs for the robot
body to recover from deformation quickly.
In addition to the turning speed, the turning radius to the
body length ratio is also a good metric to quantify the turning
performance of soft robots as smaller turning radius helps the
robot to achieve obstacle avoidance even in confined spaces.
Therefore, the smaller the ratio is, the better the turning
performance of the robot has. As shown in Table 1, our
soft robot has a turning radius to body length ratio of about
0.5, which is one of the best among other soft crawling
robots. The main reason is that most of the soft crawling
robots3,10,21–23,34–36 have the turning motion and the linear

Table 1. A Comparison of the Average Turning Speed and Turning Radius of Different
Soft Crawling Robots
Turning Turning
Soft climbing robot Tethered Actuation method BL (mm) speed (/s) radius/BL
Our robot Yes Pneumatic 135 15.09 *0.50
Tolley et al.3 No Pneumatic 650 *0.2 *2.20
Zou et al.9 Yes Pneumatic 154 *1.63 *0.42
Umedachi et al.10 Yes SMA 85 2.9 *2.10
Seok et al.34 Yes SMA 200 *0.33 *4.03
Cheng et al.35 Yes Cable 250 *0.9 *1.63
Kandhari et al.36 Yes Cable *1190 *0.70 *0.96
Qin et al.21 Yes Dielectric elastomer 115 0.58 *1.13
Cao et al.22 Yes Dielectric elastomer 100 *0.3 *1.6
Li et al.23 Yes Dielectric elastomer 40 *11 4
BL, body length; SMA, shape memory alloy.
 10
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FIG. 10. The soft robot navigates through three obstacles by following a figure-of-eight path. Color images are available
online.
motion coupled together. Hence, the robot moves forward
during turning motion, which leads to a large turning radius.
Whereas the omnidirectional soft robot9 and our soft robot
decouple the linear and turning motion and achieve a high
turning radius to body length ratio. This extraordinary
turning performance empowers our soft robot to avoid ob-
stacles even in confined spaces.
Obstacle navigation
To demonstrate the mobility of the robot in confined
spaces, we drove the robot to navigate through three obstacles
by following a figure-of-eight path. The gap distance between
two adjacent obstacles is 13.5 cm, which equals to the body
length of the robot. Figure 10 shows the captured images of
the robot at different time steps. The robot first rotates around
the first obstacle anticlockwise and then changes its direction
to rotate around the second obstacle clockwise. Finally, the
robot returned to the starting position by rotating around the
first obstacle anticlockwise again. Due to the fast locomotion
speed, the robot managed to complete this task in 90 s. A
video of this obstacle navigation is available in Supplemen-
tary Movie S3.
FIG. 11. The soft robot
climbs on a vertical wall. The
white dashed line indicates
the starting position. Color
images are available online.
QIN ET AL.
Wall climbing
Integrating electroadhesion with the VASAs not only en-
hances the locomotion efficiency but also endows the robot
with the ability to move on inclined surfaces. The strong
adhesion force helps the robot to overcome its self-weight
and adhere to the inclined surface without falling. In addition,
the design of the VASA is another crucial factor in the
climbing motion. First, made of springs and fabric, the VA-
SAs that account for most of the robot weight only weigh
21.2 g as shown in Supplementary Table S2. Second, the
height of the VASA is limited to the outer diameter of the
compression springs, which ensures that the robot height is
<30 mm (Supplementary Table S2). Therefore, the center of
gravity of the robot is close to the wall, which reduces the risk
of falling during climbing. Experiments were conducted to
study the relationship between the speed of the robot and the
inclined angle. Due to the strong adhesion force, the speed of
the robot drops slightly as the inclined angle increases as
illustrated in Supplementary Figure S4.
We further challenged the robot with a vertical wall. With
the same actuation signal in Figure 1C, the robot failed the
vertical climbing task due to the lack of stable adhesion force
 A VERSATILE SOFT CRAWLING ROBOT
FIG. 12. The speed of the robot under different payloads.
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during the signal transition process. To solve this problem,
we programmed a small overlapping time between the ac-
tuation of the front and rear foot so that the feet can have
enough time to establish stable adhesion force during the
signal transition process. The overlapping time was set as
0.3 s through trial and error. Figure 11 shows the progression
of the climbing robot on a wooden surface. The speed was
measured to be 6.67 mm/s or 0.049 body length per second,
which is 3.6 times faster than that of soft wall-climbing robot
based on vacuum actuators.16 A video of this wall-climbing
motion is available in Supplementary Movie S4.
Despite the fast climbing speed, the climbing perfor-
mance of the current soft robot is still far behind some of the
wall-climbing robots driven by motors, such as the flipping
robot,37 the Geckobot,29 and the Mini-Whegs robot.30
Therefore, our future plan is to improve the mobility of our
robot from the aspects of structure design and enhancement
of adhesion force. For example, inspired by the Mini-Whegs
soft tape feet, we will try to reduce the thickness of our
electrostatic actuators so that it can conform to inhomoge-
neous substrate geometries.
Payload
Robots are usually designed to perform some functions
such as surveillance, search, and rescue, which inevitably
require the robot to carry some equipment. Therefore, large
payload is necessary for the robot in practical applications.
Table 2. A Comparison of the Payload and Speed Under Payload of Different Soft Crawling Robots
Soft climbing robot Tethered Actuation method Payload (g)
Our robot with Yes Pneumatic
1 kg weight
Our robot with Yes Pneumatic
3 kg weight
Tolley et al.3 No Pneumatic
Li et al.23 Yes Dielectric elastomer
Cao et al.22 No Dielectric elastomer
Must et al.20 No IEAP
IEAP, ionic electromechanically active polymer.
11
We conducted experiments to study the payload capability of
the robot. In this test, 87% vacuum pressure and 3 kV voltage
were applied to the robot body and feet, respectively. Yellow
weights were placed on the two feet evenly as shown in the
inset of Figure 12. The same experimental setup in the speed
optimization section was employed here to measure the speed
of the robot under different payloads. We calculated the
average speed of the robot over three continuous cycles to
reduce the measurement error. Figure 12 shows the experi-
mental results with an increasing payload at a step of 200 g. The
corresponding locomotion speed drops as the payload increases
(Fig. 12; Supplementary Movie S5). The decrease of the speed
can be attributed to the increase of the friction force on the feet
as the payload increases, which in turn limits the deformation of
the robot body. The maximum payload achieved before the
speed drops significantly is 3 kg, which is about 69 times its
self-weight. The great payload capability reveals the potential
for development of an untethered soft robot, which can achieve
autonomous operations in practical applications.
Table 2 compared the payload capability of our robot with
existing soft crawling robots. Two indicators, namely the
payload to self-weight ratio and the locomotion speed under
payload, are employed to quantify the payload capability. It is
important to note that the self-weight of the robot only counts
the weight of the robot, and the weight of the power source
and control units are excluded in the calculation. As men-
tioned in the earlier discussion, the locomotion speed of the
robot decreases as the payload increases, as shown in Fig-
ure 12. Hence, two payload-speed points of our soft robot are
chosen for the comparison. As illustrated in Table 2, our soft
robot has the largest payload to self-weight ratio compared
with other soft crawling robots. Although the soft robot de-
veloped by Li et al.23 has a higher locomotion speed than that
of our robot under maximum payload, our soft robot is ca-
pable of even higher locomotion speed when the payload to
self-weight ratio is at a similar level. The large payload to
self-weight ratio of our robot mainly lies in the use of the
VASA. Compared with other soft crawling robots based on
electrical actuated polymers,20–22 the VASA can generate
much larger output force, leading to large payload.
In addition to the investigation of the payload on flat sur-
faces, experiments are also performed to measure the payload
capability of the soft robot on inclined surfaces. As shown in
Supplementary Movie S6, the robot can carry a 20 g weight
and climb on a 45 inclined surface. It should be noted that
the payload capability of the robot on inclined surfaces is
much smaller compared with that on the flat surface. The
Speed under
Self-weight (g) Payload/weight payload (BL/s)
1000 43 2300% 0.0713
3000 43 6900% 0.0432
1200 3800 32% 0.0077
*15 5 300% *0.05
181 71.6 253% 0.02
1.499 0.221 678% 0.015
 12
reason is that the payload on the inclined surfaces depends
on the electrostatic force, which is much smaller than the
output force of the robot body. Increasing the voltage could
increase the adhesion force but at the cost of potential
electrical breakdown. Therefore, increasing the adhesion
force will be one of our key future research directions as it
not only helps increase the mobility of the robot on the wall
but also enhances the payload capability on the inclined
surfaces.
In addition to the above mentioned capabilities, the robot
could also cross a gap and kick a ball due to the fast recovery
ability of its body (See Supplementary Data). More details
can be found in Supplementary Fig. S5 and Supplementary
Movies S7 and S8.
Conclusion and Future Work
In this article, we have demonstrated a versatile soft
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crawling robot capable of rapid and effective locomotion.
The robot body, made of two VASAs, contracts in response to
vacuum pressure and recovers to the original state quickly
upon deactivation, which ensures a large deformation per
actuation cycle. Meanwhile, the robot feet, made of two
electrostatic actuators, can anchor on the attached surface
without slippage to improve the locomotion efficiency.
Therefore, the robot is able to achieve rapid linear motion and
records one of the fastest turning speed to date among ex-
isting soft crawling robots. Moreover, our soft crawling robot
also has five distinctive advantages compared with the ex-
isting soft crawling robots. (1) The robot works well in
confined spaces with undesirable obstacles because of its
small turning radius. (2) It can move in inclined even vertical
surfaces due to the use of electroadhesion technology. (3) The
robot is able to carry a payload of 69 times its self-weight on a
horizontal surface, which reveals the potential of developing
a fully autonomous soft robot. (4) The robot can function in
more complex environments with gaps because of its de-
formable body and electrostatic feet. (5) The simple robotic
structure facilitates the modeling of the robot locomotion,
consequently reducing the difficulty in developing a control
strategy for the robot. Therefore, this novel soft crawling
robot can serve as a test bed for developing fully untethered
and autonomous soft robots to perform effectively in un-
structured environments.
Despite these impressive functionalities, the current soft
robot still has many aspects that can be improved on. First,
our current soft robot requires external wires and power
source, which greatly limits its functionalities especially
in practical applications. Hence, we plan to develop a fully
untethered soft robot with the power source and control cir-
cuits on board. Second, the speed optimization for the robot is
based on an empirical model developed by a data-driven
method. To increase the generalizability of the modeling, we
intend to develop an analytical model which takes the change
in the air pressure of the robot body into account for analysis
of the step response. Third, we plan to enhance the adhesion
force and improve the mobility of our robot from the aspects
of structure design.
Acknowledgments
This work is supported by MOE academic research grant
(R-397-000-301-114) awarded to R.C.-H.Y, and MOE Tier 1
QIN ET AL.
Singapore (R-265-000-609-114) and ASTAR Singapore (R-
265-000-629-305) awarded to Z.J.
Author Disclosure Statement
No competing financial interests exist.
Supplementary Material
Supplementary Data
Supplementary Figure S1
Supplementary Figure S2
Supplementary Figure S3
Supplementary Figure S4
Supplementary Figure S5
Supplementary Table S1
Supplementary Table S2
Supplementary Movie S1
Supplementary Movie S2
Supplementary Movie S3
Supplementary Movie S4
Supplementary Movie S5
Supplementary Movie S6
Supplementary Movie S7
Supplementary Movie S8
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Address correspondence to:
Raye Chen-Hua Yeow
Department of Biomedical Engineering
National University of Singapore
4 Engineering Drive 3
Singapore 117583
E-mail: rayeow@nus.edu.sg
Jian Zhu
Department of Mechanical Engineering
National University of Singapore
9 Engineering Drive 1
Singapore 117576
E-mail: mpezhuj@nus.edu.sg