Accelerating Musculoskeletal Robotics Through Parametric Design and 3D‐Printed Flexible Structures

Abstract

The human body moves smoothly through coordinated soft elements including muscles, tendons, ligaments, and cushioning tissues. Conventional musculoskeletal robots often simplify these using wires or rigid joints, limiting biological flexibility and requiring extensive customization. Thus, a unified framework for designing biomimetic compliant elements remains lacking. Here, parametric design is integrated with flexible 3D printing to generate muscle‐, tendon‐, ligament‐, and cushioning‐inspired compliant components through a unified fabrication process using a single thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) material. Tuning pattern parameters, like lattice density and branch thickness, tailors mechanical properties across body regions. Additionally, ligament‐based joint constraints and integrated tendon‐driven actuation enable continuous, coordinated multijoint leg motions at life scale under external suspension, with partial body‐weight support and torso roll, pitch, and yaw each constrained from −20° to +20°. These results validate patterned flexible structures as a practical framework for musculoskeletal robot construction, simplifying design‐to‐fabrication workflows and enabling scalable biomimetic systems with potential extensions to whole‐body humanoids and embedded sensing.