A catapult robot with chameleon-inspired multi-body elastic nested system

The flexible tongue of chameleon takes advantage of special energy releasing mechanism and performs rapid extension/contraction in longitudinal motion, which provides a new perspective in developing novel continuum robotics. Inspired by the rapid projection mechanism of the chameleon tongue, this paper makes a study of biological structure, regulatory principle, biomechanics of the chameleon tongue to take deep insight into the mechanism of such inherent behaviors. Then a multi-body elastic nested robot is proposed after the elaborate analysis of the biological phenomena of rapid extension/contraction induced by elastic-energy storage/release mechanism. And a cable type external driver is adopted to develop the extension and contraction motions of the projection robot. Finally, via developing physical prototype and carrying out experiments, the motion principle analysis is verified and the function of the tongue-inspired structure is tested with specific control strategy. Generally, this paper will provide a novel theory and technical support to address the problem of high-speed grasping under the unstructured environment.