Design and Experimental Study of a Cable-Driven Hexapod Soft Robot

Line-driven soft robots possess inherent advantages in terms of cushioning and terrain adaptability, but the controllable deformation design of line-driven structures and its coordination mechanism with the overall robot motion remain insufficiently studied. To fill this gap, this paper designs a line-driven hexapod soft robot that achieves directional bending of flexible legs through unilateral line traction, combined with triangular gait co-motion and ROS-based multi-sensor perception. Integrating leg deformation as part of the motion mechanism enables the robot to achieve straight-line and turning movements while maintaining structural compliance. This paper establishes the mapping relationship between the leg actuation space, configuration space, and task space, constructs a kinematic model, and uses the finite element method to analyze leg deformation and stress distribution. Based on this, a robot prototype is built, and a ROS-based distributed control and perception system is constructed, utilizing LiDAR, camera, and attitude sensor data to achieve SLAM and state monitoring. Experimental results show that the robot can achieve continuous motion with an average speed of 15.32 mm/s and a turning angle of 4.75° in a single gait cycle. The feasibility of line-driven structure control based on unilateral traction was verified, and a reference was provided for the design of soft robots oriented towards environmental perception.