Proof of Concept, Spring/Summer 2026

Creating a burrowing robot is a very ambitious project, especially based on the limited time left I have in the lab before I graduate. At the same time, since I have already CADed the 3D version of the peristaltic robot described in my ICRA paper, it would now be relatively straightforward to build it and iterate on it.
The essential ingredients to burrowing through sand-like or soil-like environments for centipedes seem to be friction modulation and peristalsis, it will be interesting to study whether similar behaviors can be achieved by means of mechanical design adjustments and/or clever controllers implementation, and how to co-design through the combination of the two.

While working well enough for the sake of our RSS paper, the antenna prototype we used in that project was a very simple one, due to the limited amount of time we had. Now, we are thinking to focus more on its design, and specifically even about giving it a “soft twist” and see how this affects the overall robot locomotion capabilities.