The ultra-thin soft robot, aptly dubbed the Thin Soft Robot (TS-Robot), is just 1.7 mm thin and designed to access confined spaces and challenging environments, as well as tiny millimeter-wide gaps in industrial machinery to perform industrial inspections.

Source: University of Nottingham

Thanks to its flexible design and multimodal locomotion capabilities, the TS-Robot is able to squeeze through narrow gaps and climb over obstacles, thus making it appropriate for performing tasks such as inspecting turbines and generators. The TS-Robot can also crawl, climb and even swim, which makes it adaptable to a wide assortment of environments for various terrains.

“Our TS-Robots are designed to tackle the scientific challenges of multimodal locomotion in soft robotics, particularly when encountering obstacles such as narrow gaps, trenches, walls and liquids along their navigation paths. Unlike conventional robots, which face significant limitations in these environments, our technology offers a potential breakthrough for exploring difficult and complex terrains,” its developers explained.

During trials of the TS-Robot prototype, the robot demonstrated what the researchers call exceptional power and speed, reportedly exerting forces 41 times their own weight and traveling at speeds 1.16 times their body length per second.

Further, the robots can reportedly collaborate with several TS robots or drones, thus enhancing their performance in inspection and delivery tasks.

The researchers intend to improve the robot’s design by equipping it for more demanding aerospace, energy maintenance and nuclear decommissioning tasks.

An article detailing the thin robot, “Multimodal locomotion ultra-thin soft robots for exploration of narrow spaces,” appears in the journal Nature Communications.