Fig. 5: The autonomous insect-scale soft inchworm crawler and legged crawler.

a The experiment to evaluate the high impact resistance capability of this untethered soft EEM inchworm crawler. The robot first crawls on a platform at a 30 m height from the ground, and then drops to the ground with a high impact. After that, this autonomous crawler can continue to crawl forward without damage. b The inchworm robot can also change its crawling direction by integrating two independent coils into its body while not increasing the robot's size. c The autonomous soft-legged crawler. (i) Components of the robot, including a legged crawling joint, a battery, and a control circuit. (ii) The legged crawling locomotion in a lab environment and an open-field environment (soil ground). The pictures are superimposed frames from Supplementary Video 9.