Inchworm-inspired soft robot. (Image by H. P. Thanabalan.)Bio-inspired soft robot for multi-directionality
Hari Prakash Thanabalan, Lars Bengtsson, Ugo Lafont, Giovanni Volpe
SPIE Optics+Photonics, San Diego, CA, USA, 3-7 August 2025 Date: 5th August 2025 Time: 8:30 AM – 8:45 AM Place: Conv. Ctr. Room 4
Soft robotics are the forefront of robotics evolution that leverages compliant materials such as silicone elastomer to mimic biological organisms. With infinite degrees of freedom, soft robots surpass rigid robots in adaptability making them ideal for exploration and manipulation tasks. Here we focus on inchworm inspired soft robot achieving multidirectional locomotion through groove-guided movement. By manipulating the groove angles on a substrate, we demonstrate multidirectional locomotion by utilising only a single actuator.
Half-time seminar in Nexus, with Prof. Bernhard Mehlig (examiner) and soft matter group. (Photo by A. Callegari.)Hari Prakash completed the first half of his doctoral studies and he defended his half-time on the 10th of June 2025.
The presentation titled “Soft Robotic Platforms for Variable Conditions : From Adaptive Locomotion to Space Exploration” was held in hybrid form, both with part of the audience in Nexus room and through Zoom. The half-time consisted of a presentation about his past and planned projects, followed by a discussion and questions proposed by his opponent, Professor Bernhard Mehlig.
The presentation started with a short background introduction to soft robotics and bio-inpired soft robotics, followed by soft actuators used in the field of soft robotics and focused on the soft actuator used throughout his projects. He further then proceeded to introduce his first project and paper (which is under preparation) , “Inchworm-Inspired Soft Robot with Groove-Guided Locomotion,” and finally proceeded to introduce his second project “Soft Inchworm-Inspired Robot Fault-Tolerant Artificial Muscles for Planetary Exploration – Simulation of fault-tolerant artificial muscles under proton, neutron, and alpha irradiation”, a project in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA).
In the last section, he outlined the proposed continuation of his PhD: Experimental and the development of inchworm inspired soft robot for space exploration, particularly the Martian environment, testing the robot under real proton, neutron and alpha irradiation, quantification and characterisation of the robot under space radiation.
Group picture of the participants to the Space Slam event. (Image provided by R. Cumming)On Tuesday 9th April 2024, the event called “Space Slam” took place at Chalmers University.
Here, young researchers get to present exciting space-related work they have been or are doing at Chalmers / Gothenburg University – in one or two minutes, with the help/support of a picture and/or a prop. This event was participated by Marcus Wandt, Sweden’s third astronaut.
In this event, Hari presented his topic titled “Annelid inspired soft robot for planetary exploration” where this project is in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESTEC-ESA) and Gothenburg University.
