Basic Performance of Planar Omnidirectional Crawler during Direction Switching using Disturbance Degree of Ground Evaluation Method We introduced the disturbance degree of ground and proposed an evaluation method to measure the mobile performance of a crawler on soft ground during direction switching. First, we developed a planar omnidirectional crawler, which had a configuration with two left and right unit crawlers for performing turning motion, as the target for evaluation. Second, by utilizing the proposed disturbance degree of ground evaluation method, we investigated how the turning and translational motions of the crawler mechanism affected soft ground by measuring the flow of sand on a horizontal surface. It was quantitatively shown that translational motion switched the travel direction with lesser disturbance to the road surface compared to turning motion. We confirmed that ground disturbance could be evaluated during direction switching using the proposed method.

A Multimodal Soft CrawlingClimbing Robot with the Controllable Horizontal Plane to Slope Transition * Most of the existing soft locomotive robots are capable of moving on horizontal planes and smallangled slopes, but few of them can accomplish the largeangled slope climbing or wall climbing. We introduce an inchworm inspired soft crawlingclimbing robot capable of continuous motion from a horizontal plane to a slope of up to 75 degrees and it can perform multiple locomotion including crawling, climbing, and the transition between them. This soft crawlingclimbing robot is powered by three pneumatic actuators connected in series that deforms with two degrees of freedom, negative pressure sucker feet that generate periodical adhesion, and a semiautomatic controlling system synchronizing the body shape and anchoring of the feet. The robot mimics the body deformation and feet anchoring pattern exhibited by inchworms and can be applied in inspection, surveillance, and rescuing.