Hizook previously covered a number of DARPA Chembot projects, including Dr. Hong's Whole-Skin Locomotion (aka amoeba robot) and the IRobot Jamming Skin Robot (aka "blob bot").  The original blob bot was rather creepy, but researchers from IRobot, MIT, and Harvard have ameliorated the situation by creating a decidedly non-creepy successor: a Chembot with soft (silicone?) selectively-inflatable body segments for locomotion.  Hopefully a fully-integrated version (power, actuation, and control) is near at hand. Read on for photos and a video of the new prototype.

The latest Chembot effort hails from the MIT Distributed Robotics Lab (DRL) and involves a number of researchers:  Nikolaus Correll (MIT), Kyle Gilpin (MIT), Daniela Rus (MIT), Chris Jones (IRobot), Robert Wood (Harvard), L. Mahadevan (Harvard), and George Whitesides (Harvard).  From the project page:

We are interested in designing "soft" robotic systems that show unprecedented levels of shape deformation, flexibility and robustness. To achieve this goal, we aim at combining chemistry, information theory, and control to create novel materials that embed sensing, computation, and actuation.

DARPA Chembot from IRobot / MIT   DARPA Chembot from IRobot / MIT

 

The design is clearly in the prototype stages, and seems to be based off a previous DRL research project called Hex Roller.  Hopefully the control strategies examined previously can be (rapidly) applied to the Chembot.

MIT Hex Roller Robot  MIT Hex Roller Robot

 

I think it is fair to say that this latest effort is vastly superior, at least in aesthetics, to the original blob bot (pictured below); hopefully forthcoming controllers also make it functionally superior.

iRobot Jamming Skin Blob Robot iRobot Jamming Skin Blob Robot iRobot Jamming Skin Blob Robot iRobot Jamming Skin Blob Robot iRobot Jamming Skin Blob Robot

 

To quote:

We are currently investigating a series of closed-chain kinematic systems, which have the ability to locomote and deform simply by changing the stiffness of their joints as well as suitable actuators. Unlike classical actuators such as electrical, combustion or steam-engine motors, changes in stiffness have the potential to be directly obtained from chemical reactions (e.g. thermal expansion, liquid-gas phase transitions or "smart'" fluids) inside the material. 

While it seems the IRobot / MIT / Harvard effort focuses (mostly) on pneumatic solutions at this time, the "Whole Skin Locomotion" (aka Amoeba) project by Dr. Dennis Hong is looking at chemically-actuated solutions.  What other efforts do you know of in this space?