Active reeling and steering control of a vine robot

Abstract

A soft vine robot includes a main body configured as a tube inverted back inside itself to define a pressure channel, such that when the channel is pressurized, the main body everts, and inverted material of the main body everts and passes out of a tip at a distal end of the main body. A reeling mechanism is controlled by a reeling motor, the reeling mechanism being within the tube and being configured to actively feed the inverted material to provide or assist eversion and to actively retract extended material of the main body back. Control and communications electronics control the reeling motor. T reeling mechanism can include a steering mechanism with a bending axis controlled by a steering motor. By actively supplying eversion or inversion forces in the robot body, the soft vine robot can grow with reduced pressure compared to base reeled robots.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.