The development of a soft crawling robot (SCR) capable of quick folding and recovery has important application value in the field of biomimetic engineering. This article proposes an origami-inspired vacuum-actuated foldable soft crawling robot (OVFSCR), which is composed of entirely soft foldable mirrored origami actuators with a Kresling crease pattern, and possesses capabilities of realizing multimodal locomotion incorporating crawling, climbing, and turning movements. The OVFSCR is characterized by producing periodically foldable and restorable body deformation, and its asymmetric structural design of low front and high rear hexahedral feet creates a friction difference between the two feet and contact surface to enable unidirectional movement. Combining an actuation control sequence with an asymmetrical structural design, the body deformation and feet in contact with ground can be coordinated to realize quick continuous forward crawling locomotion. Furthermore, an efficient dynamic model is developed to characterize the OVFSCR’s motion capability. The robot demonstrates multifunctional characteristics, including crawling on a flat surface at an average speed of 11.9 mm/s, climbing a slope of 3°, carrying a certain payload, navigating inside straight and curved round tubes, removing obstacles, and traversing different media. It is revealed that the OVFSCR can imitate contractile deformation and crawling mode exhibited by soft biological worms. Our study contributes to paving avenues for practical applications in adaptive navigation, exploration, and inspection of soft robots in some uncharted territory.

Power quality evaluation data are heterogeneous and fluctuating, and there are large subjective factors in the evaluation process. To solve this problem, a power quality evaluation method based on incentive punishment factor and the ordered weighted aggregation (OWA) operators was proposed. The integrity and fairness of the evaluation information were guaranteed, through the homogenisation of the evaluation data. And using incentive and penalty factors to calculate the single index evaluation value without considering the time factor. By introducing the time weights and adopting the linear target programming model and ordered the weighted averaging operator to get the primary evaluation values of the indices in the inspection period. Then, the minimum variance method was used to get index weights, and the ordered weighted geometric averaging (OWGA) operator was applied to obtain the comprehensive evaluation value of the power quality. Finally, the power quality of a distribution system with photovoltaic generation under different load conditions is analysed as an example. The results showed that the method proposed in this paper distinguishes the power quality level under various load conditions significantly, which verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the model.

Soft actuators are increasingly drawing attention in robotic application with human–robot interaction. To tackle the challenging actuation problem confronted in the field of soft robotics or bionic engineering, combining origami technique with 3D printing manufacturing method, we propose an origami-inspired 3D-printed soft foldable actuator with the Kresling pattern that can be made in one go. The SFA is composed of a four-layer origami chamber made from soft materials with high resilience and high strength, which is capable of lifting a maximum weight of 2000 g with a contraction ratio of 62%, enduring a vacuum pressure up to 99.8 kPa while tuning longitudinal contraction deformation. Besides, it can generate a high stroke and a large driving force throughout the whole deformation process. Based on the principle of work equilibrium and combined with geometric theory, an analytical theoretical model that can evaluate large contraction deformation and actuation performance is established and validated experimentally, which is helpful for designing other similar soft actuators. Moreover, we analyze the effect of different structural parameters on actuation characteristics of the actuator and obtain an optimized SFA with best matched structural parameters. The SFA possessing multifunctional features is conducive to flexion and extension movement of a bionic anthropomorphic leg and can complete effective actions in some application scenarios including kicking ball, running exercise and grasping target objects, which opens up new opportunities for human–robot interaction and collaboration.

The power generation of the photovoltaic plant is related to the cleanliness of the photovoltaic modules. The accumulation of natural dust is the main source of pollution, which is affected by human activities and meteorological factors such as temperature, humidity, wind speed, and rainfall concentration in the current region. On the basis of particle swarm optimization (PSO) and the least‐squares support vector machine (LSSVM), the density of dust on photovoltaic modules was estimated. The authors proposed that the inertia weight decreased as a concave function to improve the efficiency of optimization and let the two positive constants change dynamically to improve convergence performance. The dust accumulation prediction model was established considering natural rainfall and the authors obtained the attenuation rate of the photovoltaic power output. Finally, the experiments in Hangzhou showed that the model can predict the density of accumulated dust quickly, which provides a theory for predicting PV power generation and managing the cleaning frequency.

Soft robotic grippers, with their intrinsic compliance and dexterity, provide safer manipulation of soft and fragile items compared to traditional rigid ones. However, achieving high functional integration within a single soft gripper, particularly for cross‐scale, multi‐particle, and high‐load manipulation, remains a major challenge. Here, a monolithically 3D‐printed, rapeseed‐flower‐inspired self‐reconfigurable soft gripper (SRSG) is presented, which can rapidly reconfigure its finger arrangement within ∼130 ms and achieves precise, reversible switching between diagonal and parallel configurations. The SRSG can be readily incorporated with detachable petal modules to alter the grasping workspace. Leveraging these capabilities enables a range of functions: rotating bulbs of varying diameters, picking fruits, grasping cross‐scale objects ranging from 0.07 to 270 mm (grasping range ratio of ∼3857 times), lifting payloads up to 5.6 kg (∼106 times its own weight), and adaptively enveloping numerous fine particles, multiple live aquatic organisms, and fragile underwater targets. The fully soft, electronics‐free SRSG establishes a self‐reconfigurable grasping paradigm for robust operation in unstructured environments, and opens up new directions for soft robotic end‐effectors.