Impact-resistant, autonomous robots inspired by tensegrity architecture

Tensegrity robots—composed of rigid struts suspended in a network of elastic cables—have been proposed as the next generation of planetary rovers and disaster response platforms, with their inherent impact resilience potentially eliminating the need for separate landers if they can survive aerial deployment. Although non-robotic tensegrity structures have demonstrated substantial impact resistance, integrating this property into autonomous robotic systems remains a grand challenge. Here we present Tribar, a three-bar tensegrity robot capable of surviving high-impact landings (at least 5.7 m) and autonomously navigating unstructured terrain post impact. We characterize the robot’s locomotion, evaluate its autonomous navigation capabilities, benchmark its performance relative to state-of-the-art tensegrity robots and demonstrate its robustness through successful locomotion after a cliff fall.