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Спутники
РН
SpaceX
Роскосмос
NASA
СпутникиРНSpaceXРоскосмосNASAAiming at the vulnerability of joint motors in legged robots during fall scenarios, inspired by the self-righting phenomenon of cats (“falling cat problem”), a cat-inspired falling robot driven by pneumatic muscles is proposed to achieve righting motion. The robot features a flexible waist, legs, and movable hip joints, utilizing pneumatic muscles with biomimetic muscle-like characteristics as driving elements. To validate the robot’s righting performance, a virtual prototype was established in Adams, employing a spring-damper equivalent model to characterize the nonlinear dynamic properties of the pneumatic muscle. The “coupled differential inertia” theory was proposed, and based on this, two groups of symmetric pneumatic muscles were configured to coordinate the rotation of the front and rear robot. The simulation demonstrated that the virtual prototype rotated by 178°, validating the feasibility of applying the “ coupled differential inertia “ theory to achieve self-righting motion and the structural rationality of the robot.
Aiming at the vulnerability of joint motors in legged robots during fall scenarios, inspired by the self-righting phenomenon of cats (“falling cat problem”), a cat-inspired falling robot driven by pneumatic muscles is proposed to achieve righting motion. The robot features a flexible waist, legs, and movable hip joints, utilizing pneumatic muscles with biomimetic muscle-like characteristics as driving elements. To validate the robot’s righting performance, a virtual prototype was established in Adams, employing a spring-damper equivalent model to characterize the nonlinear dynamic properties of the pneumatic muscle. The “coupled differential inertia” theory was proposed, and based on this, two groups of symmetric pneumatic muscles were configured to coordinate the rotation of the front and rear robot. The simulation demonstrated that the virtual prototype rotated by 178°, validating the feasibility of applying the “ coupled differential inertia “ theory to achieve self-righting motion and the structural rationality of the robot.
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School of Mechanical Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, 230009, China
Jian Cao & Yongfu Yan
State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China
Xiaocong Zhu
Authors
Correspondence to Xiaocong Zhu.
School of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
Jianrong Tan
School of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
Zhenyu Liu
Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
Weifei Hu
© 2027 The Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society
Cao, J., Yan, Y., Zhu, X. (2027). Structural Design and Flipping Simulation of a Cat-Inspired Falling Robot Driven by Pneumatic Muscles. In: Tan, J., Liu, Z., Hu, W. (eds) Advances in Mechanical Design. ICMD 2025. Mechanisms and Machine Science, vol 206. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-95-7904-4_129
Download citationDOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-95-7904-4_129
Published: 25 June 2026
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-95-7903-7
Online ISBN: 978-981-95-7904-4
eBook Packages: Mechanical Engineering (R0)Springer Nature Proceedings excluding Computer Science