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.

Inchworm-inspired bionic soft crawling robot (SCR) composed of soft materials possesses preeminent active compliant deformation ability and has obvious advantages over traditional hard robots when moving in a confined space, which is up-and-coming candidate in robotic community. Nevertheless, there are rare investigations on dynamic modeling problems of the SCR allowing for its nonlinear deformation properties and frictional contact that affects its crawling performance. In view of this, within the theoretical framework of absolute nodal coordinate formulation, in consideration of material, geometry, and boundary nonlinearities, combining a multiple-point contact model with the Coulomb friction model, an effective and accurate nonlinear dynamic model for a bioinspired SCR with one single limb is proposed to elucidate its motion law. We implement an in-depth dynamic research and analysis on the SCR in terms of average velocity, stick–slip characteristic, gaits and successfully simulate its successive forward crawling locomotion meanwhile gaining dynamic response. The proposed theoretical dynamic model correctly captures the SCR’ complex geometry configurations and nonlinear deformations, discloses its stick–slip dynamic behaviors and crawling locomotion mechanism, whose effectiveness and superiority are validated experimentally, which inspires a deep insight to motion analysis of other types of soft robots, and enlightens new ideas of their diversified architecture designs.

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.

In nature, structures such as earwig wings and mimosa leaves exhibit remarkable folding and unfolding capabilities. Inspired by these biological mechanisms, this work investigates soft foldable and torsional actuators based on Kresling crease pattern, fabricated using soft TPE 85A material through 3D printing. These actuators enable both foldable grasping and torsional motions. An analytical geometric model is developed to characterize the relationship between structural parameters and the inscribed circle area of a single-layer soft actuator, thereby elucidating their influence on contraction magnitude and relative deflection angle. Treating the soft actuator as an equivalent spring system, a mechanical model relating vacuum pressure to contraction ratio is further established, revealing an approximately linear relationship. The actuators are subsequently integrated with suction cups to form two end-effectors, a foldable soft gripper and a torsional soft gripper, and mounted onto a UR5 robotic arm via a customized flange. Demonstration experiments show that the foldable gripper achieves gentle, adaptive grasping of diverse objects, while the torsional gripper replicates human-like twisting motion, such as opening a bottle cap. This study highlights the potential of Kresling-based soft grippers for practical deployment in automated production tasks, including precision assembly and fruit harvesting.

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.