A novel soft robot with three locomotion modes

Mollusks have a strong ability adapting to environment, many researchers have developed some soft robots mimicking the mollusks movements, but these soft robots usually have only one locomotion mode, which cannot effectively take into account the movement efficiency and the environment adaptability simultaneously. In this paper, we present a novel soft robot with three locomotion modes which are rolling, Omega crawling and vermiculation. By controlling the body deformation and the connection mechanism of the head and the tail separation, we can realize the three locomotion modes and their switching. Firstly, we present the principle of three locomotion modes switching and analyze the feasibility achieving three locomotion modes, then the detailed structure design of the soft robot is delivered. Secondly, the simulation and experiment for the rolling locomotion are fulfilled to verify the feasibility of the soft robot, as the rolling locomotion is most difficult to realize for the three locomotion modes.