JelloCube: A Continuously Jumping Robot With Soft Body

In this paper, we present a soft-bodied jumping robot called JelloCube, which leverages its body's elasticity to achieve a highly dynamic passive bouncing motion after an active jumping motion. This cube-shaped robot is covered by silicone foam, and each of its six faces has an opening to allow for jumping actuation. By winding up and releasing an elastic strip, the robot can jump in two directions at any orientation. We describe the design and fabrication process of the robot. The robot's single jumping performance, including the jumping height, the first and final landing locations, are empirically characterized. A steering function is designed to enable the robot to achieve accurate directional jumps, and its performance on different grounds is also characterized. In order to control this robot, we develop four algorithms: single jump, steering, directional jump, and multistep directional jump, respectively. Experimental results measure how our robot achieves an autonomously jumping locomotion along a designed path. This robot can be used for applications that require locomotion on uneven terrain such as search and rescue, surveillance, and exploration.