Issue

Vol. 17 (2025)

From Coils to Crawls: A Snake-Inspired Soft Robot for Multimodal Locomotion and Grasping

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-025-01762-9
He Chen
National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology On Advanced Composites in Special Environments, Center for Composite Materials and Structures, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, People’s Republic of China
Zhong Chen
Dongfang Electric Academy of Science and Technology Co. Ltd, Chengdu 611731, People’s Republic of China
Zonglin Liu
National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology On Advanced Composites in Special Environments, Center for Composite Materials and Structures, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, People’s Republic of China
Jinhua Xiong
National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology On Advanced Composites in Special Environments, Center for Composite Materials and Structures, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, People’s Republic of China
Qian Yan
National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology On Advanced Composites in Special Environments, Center for Composite Materials and Structures, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, People’s Republic of China
Teng Fei
National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology On Advanced Composites in Special Environments, Center for Composite Materials and Structures, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, People’s Republic of China
Xu Zhao
National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology On Advanced Composites in Special Environments, Center for Composite Materials and Structures, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, People’s Republic of China
Fuhua Xue
National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology On Advanced Composites in Special Environments, Center for Composite Materials and Structures, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, People’s Republic of China
Haowen Zheng
National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology On Advanced Composites in Special Environments, Center for Composite Materials and Structures, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, People’s Republic of China
Huanxin Lian
National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology On Advanced Composites in Special Environments, Center for Composite Materials and Structures, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, People’s Republic of China
Yunxiang Chen
National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology On Advanced Composites in Special Environments, Center for Composite Materials and Structures, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, People’s Republic of China
Liangliang Xu
National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology On Advanced Composites in Special Environments, Center for Composite Materials and Structures, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, People’s Republic of China
Qingyu Peng
National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology On Advanced Composites in Special Environments, Center for Composite Materials and Structures, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, People’s Republic of China
Xiaodong He
National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology On Advanced Composites in Special Environments, Center for Composite Materials and Structures, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, People’s Republic of China

Corresponding Author: Xiaodong He

hexd@hit.edu.cn

Nano-Micro Letters, Vol. 17 (2025), Article Number: 243

Abstract

Currently, numerous biomimetic robots inspired by natural biological systems have been developed. However, creating soft robots with versatile locomotion modes remains a significant challenge. Snakes, as invertebrate reptiles, exhibit diverse and powerful locomotion abilities, including prey constriction, sidewinding, accordion locomotion, and winding climbing, making them a focus of robotics research. In this study, we present a snake-inspired soft robot with an initial coiling structure, fabricated using MXene-cellulose nanofiber ink printed on pre-expanded polyethylene film through direct ink writing technology. The controllable fabrication of initial coiling structure soft robot (ICSBot) has been achieved through theoretical calculations and finite element analysis to predict and analyze the initial structure of ICSBot, and programmable ICSBot has been designed and fabricated. This robot functions as a coiling gripper capable of grasping objects with complex shapes under near infrared light stimulation. Additionally, it demonstrates multi-modal crawling locomotion in various environments, including confined spaces, unstructured terrains, and both inside and outside tubes. These results offer a novel strategy for designing and fabricating coiling-structured soft robots and highlight their potential applications in smart and multifunctional robotics.


Highlights:
1 A tunable initial coiling structure soft robot (ICSBot) has been developed by combining theoretical calculations, finite element analysis, and direct ink writing technology.
2 By mimicking the prey-handling behavior of snakes, ICSBot functions as a coiling gripper, capable of dynamic uncoiling, object grasping, and controlled release.
3 By simulating the multimodal movement of snakes, ICSBot demonstrated sidewinding locomotion to navigate unstructured environments, accordion locomotion to navigate narrow tubes, and winding climbing locomotion to traverse tubular structures under near-infrared light radiation.

Keywords

Untethered biomimetic robots Coiling deformation Multimodal locomotion Multistimuli-response Coiling grasping
Chen, He, Zhong Chen, Zonglin Liu, Jinhua Xiong, Qian Yan, Teng Fei, Xu Zhao, Fuhua Xue, Haowen Zheng, Huanxin Lian, Yunxiang Chen, Liangliang Xu, Qingyu Peng, and Xiaodong He. 2025. “From Coils to Crawls: A Snake-Inspired Soft Robot for Multimodal Locomotion and Grasping”. Nano-Micro Letters 17 (April):243. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-025-01762-9.
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