A Self-Reconfigurable Variable-Stiffness Soft Robot Based on Boundary-Constrained Modular Units

This article describes a soft robot based onboundary constrained modular subunits. The loop-shaped robot consists of a granule-filled elastic toroidal membrane with a series of modular subunit robots attached to its exterior. The robot can operate both as a soft robot to conform to external objects or navigate through narrow corridors and as a rigid robot by jamming its internal granules using a v...