ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Robot. AI
Sec. Bio-Inspired Robotics
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frobt.2025.1546407
This article is part of the Research TopicExploring Burrowing in Biological and Robotic SystemsView all 5 articles
Burrowing and unburrowing in submerged granular media through fluidization and shape-change
Provisionally accepted
- University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, United States
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Subterranean exploration in submerged granular media (GM) presents significant challenges for robotic systems due to high drag forces and the complex physics of GM. This paper introduces a novel robotic system that combines water-jet-based fluidization for self-burrowing in submerged environments and an untethered, volume-change mechanism for burrowing out. The waterbased fluidization approach significantly reduces drag on the robot, allowing it to burrow into GM with minimal force. To burrow out, we propose ::
Keywords: Soft robot, burrowing, granular media, shape change, Fluidization, Untethered
Received: 16 Dec 2024; Accepted: 30 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Nayak, Seo, Gravish and Tolley. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Nick Gravish, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, United States
Michael T Tolley, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, United States
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