A team from the University of Michigan and Shanghai Jiao Tong University created a soft robot that defies all expectations, crawling across floors and climbing walls like a caterpillar. SPARC (Soft, Proprioceptive, Agile Robot for 3D Climbing) is a soft robot that uses origami-inspired designs to move as precisely as rigid robots while carrying loads more than twice as heavy.
SPARC, weighing less than half a pound, can cross flat terrain with 0.5% deviation from its path and climb vertical walls with 3% error margin. Its secret lines in its three pneumatic actuators based on Kresling origami patterns—imagine a paper accordion folded into a spiral. When air is pushed out, these actuators contract and twist predictably, allowing the robot to track its own shape without external sensors.
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Xiaonan Huang, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan, says most soft robots lack precise control since they don’t monitor their own movement. SPARC leverages the consistent relationship between its twisting motion and contraction distance to calculate its exact position in real-time, with a length estimation precision of less than one millimeter.
Climbing walls is hard for a soft robot, but SPARC does it with silicone suction cups. Each foot has a dual-cup design that provides a secure grip while preventing distortion under vacuum pressure. The researchers put it through four major tests: difficult ground treks and straight and curved wall climbs. It could even handle more than double its own weight without breaking a sweat. To further adaptability, the researchers paired two SPARC robots, showing they can work together to transfer from floor to wall as smoothly as one unit.
Modularity is key, as the SPARC design allows multiple units to connect and adapt to different tasks by swapping out sensors or computing modules. The team’s next goal is to cut the cord, aiming for self-contained operation that requires no additional power or motion-tracking technology.
