June 10, 2025
Keio University
Osaka University
A research group, including Takara Abe (a second-year master's student at the time of the research) and Yukitake Nakahara (a first-year student in the Doctoral Programs) from the Graduate School of Science and Technology at Keio University; Associate Professor Hidetoshi Takahashi, Professor Genya Ishigami, and Senior Assistant Professor Tomohiko Sano from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology at the same university; and Isamu Hashiguchi (a third-year student in the Doctoral Programs), Assistant Professor Shunsuke Kobayashi, and Professor Ryuichi Tarumi from the Graduate School of Engineering Science at Osaka University, has clarified the mechanism by which a thin hemispherical shell structure jumps.
In recent years, soft robots have been developed, but their behavior is influenced by complex interactions with material properties and the environment, making performance prediction difficult and requiring empirical design. Inspired by a jumping toy (popper), this study elucidated the jumping performance of a hemispherical shell structure, one of the basic structures of jumping soft robots. The findings of this research, which allow for the theoretical calculation of jumping performance using a predictive formula, are expected to provide insights for the design guidelines of soft robots in unknown environments. This research was published in the international scientific journal "Advanced Robotics Research" on June 9, 2025, and was featured on the back cover of the issue.
For the full press release, please see below.