This action is harder than moving through air or water because the surrounding material has to be moved out of the way. Researchers at UC Santa Barbara (UCSB) and Georgia Institute of Technology have taken cues from plants and animals to develop “a fast, controllable soft robot” that can burrow through granular material.
Two key ideas taken from nature are to advance by extending the tip, which keeps resistive forces localised to the growing end, and to use ‘granular fluidisation’ by sending a jet of air down into the sand to loosen it.
Image credit: .
The team is working on a project with Nasa to develop burrowing for the Moon or other bodies. Potential terrestrial uses could include soil sampling, underground installation of utilities and erosion control.
It was explained: “The technology...