Spider monkeys (genus Ateles) have a prehensile tail that functions as a flexible, multipurpose fifth limb, enabling them to navigate complex terrains, grasp objects of various sizes, and swing between supports. Inspired by the spider monkey tail, we present a life size hybrid soft-rigid continuum robot designed to imitate the function of the tail. Our planar design has a rigid skeleton with soft elements at its joints that achieve decreasing stiffness along its length. Five manually-operated wires along this central structure control the motion of the tail to form a variety of possible shapes in the 2D plane. Our design also includes a skin-like silicone and fabric tail pad that moves with the tail's tip and assists with object grasping. We quantify the force required to pull various objects out of the robot's grasp and demonstrate that this force increases with the object diameter and the number of edges in a polygonal object. We demonstrate the robot's ability to grasp, move, and release objects of various diameters, as well as to navigate around obstacles, and to retrieve an object after passing under a low passageway.

翻译：蜘蛛猴属（Ateles）的卷尾具有灵活多用的第五肢体功能，使其能够在复杂地形中穿行、抓握不同尺寸物体并在支撑物间摆荡。受蜘蛛猴尾巴启发，我们提出一种真实尺寸的混合刚柔连续体机器人，旨在模拟该尾巴的功能。我们的平面设计采用刚性骨架结构，其关节处包含刚度沿长度方向递减的柔性元件。沿中央结构布置的五根手动控制线缆可驱动尾巴运动，在二维平面上形成多种形态。设计还包含随尾巴末端移动的类皮肤硅胶织物尾垫，用于辅助物体抓握。我们量化了从机器人抓握中拉出不同物体所需的力量，证明该力随物体直径和多边形物体边数增加而增大。我们展示了机器人抓取、移动和释放不同直径物体的能力，以及绕过障碍物、在低矮通道下方穿行后取回物体的能力。