Title: Bio-inspired Burrowing Mechanisms and Robots

Abstract: Burrowing robots, capable of navigating through soil, have emerged as a novel class of mobile systems with applications in exploration, search and rescue, sensor deployment, inspection, monitoring, surveillance, transport, and construction. However, burrowing in soil presents unique challenges compared to movement in air or water. To burrow effectively, robots must overcome the substantial strength of the soil and frictional drag along their surfaces, with resistance orders of magnitude higher than in other media. Soil deposits also exhibit inherent stress and strength gradients, coupled with heterogeneity. These challenging conditions are exacerbated by the inevitable alterations to the soil structure and state caused by the robot's movement, further complicating the soil-robot interactions. Despite these challenges and complexities, numerous soil-dwelling organisms have mastered the art of burrowing, often vital for their survival. These living systems move through soil by leveraging body shape changes and exploiting the solid-fluid phase transition of granular media. Biological burrowing mechanisms, such as dual anchor and peristalsis (razor clams, earthworms), undulation (burrowing snakes, sandfish lizards), granular fluidization (mole crabs, sand octopi), and growth (plant roots), have inspired the development of bio-inspired burrowing robots. This talk synthesizes our lessons learned from understanding the burrowing mechanisms of razor clams, seed awns, and worm lizards, and the development of bio-inspired burrowing robots. Specifically, a unified soil-mechanics-based theoretical framework for reciprocating burrowing mechanisms will be highlighted, providing insights into the design of these novel systems.

Bio: Dr. Junliang (Julian) Tao is an Associate Professor at Arizona State University's School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at Arizona State University, and a Senior Investigator at the NSF Engineering Center for Bio-mediated and Bio-inspired Geotechnics (CBBG). He previously served as an Assistant Professor at The University of Akron. Dr. Tao earned his Bachelor's degree from China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), Master's from Tongji University, and Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University. A recipient of the NSF CAREER Award in 2017, his current research focuses on bio-inspired geotechnics. His work explores the fundamental interactions between living things and geological materials, abstracts these mechanisms to engineering design principles, and translates the design principles to autonomous, efficient, sustainable and intelligent geotechnics. Current research interests include bio-inspired self-burrowing robots, underground sensing and communication, sustainable countermeasures to natural hazards.