Buckling-induced navigational autonomy and sensing in soft-robots

The locomotion mechanics of microorganisms has inspired advances in biomimetic active matter, allowing translation of biological behaviours into innovative mechanical designs. Building on this vision, we introduce a new class of robotic walkers with periodic arrays of elastic cilia that exploit the nonlinear mechanics of buckling to achieve vibration-induced locomotion. Environmental interactions dynamically reorient the buckled cilia, introducing memory effects and enabling navigational autonomy without relying on external control. By embedding nonlinearity into their design, we show how our soft-robots harness their mechanics to sense and adapt their locomotion to a dynamic environment.