Emerging worm-like soft robots with various soft materials and different actuation mechanism have been frequently discussed. It is very challenging for soft robots in realizing a fast and untethered crawling. In this article, a biomimetic magnet embedded worm-like robot (shorted as “MagWorm”) in the size of centimeter level is designed and investigated. The actuation of the MagWorm is achieved by housing permanent magnetic patches in its soft body, which interact with an external moving drive-magnet system. A dynamic model is established, coupling the discrete elastic rod model with magnetic actuation. The driving mechanism is then numerically studied. Quantitative comparisons between the numerical solution and experiment results show reasonable agreement. It is shown that the MagWorm can deform part of its body into a “Ω” shape and generate biomimetic crawling locomotion. The crawling speed of the robot is studied experimentally with different sizes. Some potential applications are also proposed and demonstrated. The MagWorm represents compact and low-cost solutions that use permanent magnets for remote actuation of soft robot and can be continuously operated during long procedures.

中文翻译：

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MagWorm：仿生磁铁嵌入式蠕虫状软机器人

新兴的具有各种软材料和不同驱动机构的蠕虫状软机器人经常被讨论。软体机器人实现快速无束缚的爬行是非常具有挑战性的。本文设计并研究了一种厘米级大小的仿生磁铁嵌入式蠕虫机器人（简称“MagWorm”）。MagWorm 的驱动是通过在其软体中容纳永磁贴片来实现的，这些贴片与外部移动的驱动磁体系统相互作用。建立了一个动态模型，将离散弹性杆模型与磁驱动耦合。然后对驱动机制进行了数值研究。数值解和实验结果之间的定量比较显示出合理的一致性。结果表明，MagWorm 可以将其身体的一部分变形为“Ω”形并产生仿生爬行运动。对不同尺寸的机器人爬行速度进行了实验研究。还提出并展示了一些潜在的应用。MagWorm 代表了紧凑和低成本的解决方案，它使用永磁体远程驱动软机器人，并且可以在长时间的程序中连续操作。