Echinoderm-inspired Tube Feet for Robust Locomotion and Adhesion

Movement in echinoderms is facilitated by the coordinated activity of thousands of individually addressable and reversibly adhesive tube feet. To investigate the potential applicability of these unique biological actuators as a locomotory structure for robotics applications, we describe here the design, fabrication, and evaluation of an elastomeric structural analogue. The synthetic tube feet were modeled as bi-stable deformable domes, containing an embedded magnet to facilitate the reversible attachment to ferromagnetic materials. Two unique robots were developed using the bi-stability of these domes – CircleBot, which is capable of rolling on ferrous surfaces using a pull and roll technique, and PlanarBot, which uses a programmed deflection direction in the domes to move in a plane.