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US 10,954,789 B2Granted
Robotic mobility and construction by growth
AssigneeThe Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
InventorsElliot W. Hawkes, Allison M. Okamura, Joseph D. Greer, Laura H. Blumenschein
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A robot for navigating an environment through growth is provided. The growing robot has a thin-walled, hollow, pressurized, compliant body that elongates the body by everting from its tip new wall material that is stored inside the body. The robot controls the shape of the body by actively controlling the relative lengths of the wall material along opposing sides of the body allowing steering.
Claims5
A robot navigating an environment through elongation, comprising:
- a thin-walled, hollow, compliant body that elongates the body by everting from its tip body material that is stored inside the body, wherein distributed over the length of the body, the body material comprises active mechanisms that evert from the tip along with the body material while elongating, wherein the active mechanisms that change length hence causing length changes of the body material of the body to thereby control directional changes at different aspect of the length of the body while the body is elongating or growing.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.