Subterranean investigations: Researchers explore the shallow underground world with a burrowing soft robot

We've seen robots take to the air, dive beneath the waves and perform all sorts of maneuvers on land. Now, researchers at UC Santa Barbara and Georgia Institute of Technology are exploring a new frontier: The ground beneath our feet. Taking their cues from plants and animals that have evolved to navigate subterranean spaces, they've developed a fast, controllable soft robot that can burrow through sand. The technology not only enables new applications for fast, precise and minimally invasive movement underground, but also lays mechanical foundations for new types of robots.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-06-subterranean-explore-shallow-underground-world.html