3D-Printed Air-Powered Robots: Soft Automation Wins

A six-legged robot that walks without a single motor, circuit board, or battery sounds like a gimmick—until you look at what it implies for real-world automation. Researchers at UC San Diego recently demonstrated a monolithic soft hexapod that’s 3D-printed in one piece from thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and powered by compressed air through an internal pneumatic “logic” circuit. One CO₂ cartridge gets it about 80 seconds of walking, and when tethered to an external pump it can reportedly run for three days before maintenance.

Most teams building field robots still treat manufacturing and intelligence as separate problems: first you assemble a complex machine, then you “add AI.” Soft, air-powered robots flip that sequence. When the body itself contains mechanical timing, compliance, and distribution of power, AI gets a simpler job: choose high-level behaviors (where to step, how fast to move, when to stop) while the morphology handles the messy physics.

This post is part of our AI in Robotics & Automation series. The point isn’t that pneumatics replace electronics everywhere. The point is that manufacturing methods like one-shot 3D printing are expanding the design space for automation—especially in environments where electronics are fragile, expensive to protect, or simply impractical.

Why a one-piece soft robot matters for automation

A robot printed as a single, squishy structure is a manufacturing story first—and that’s exactly why operations and automation leaders should care.

Traditional robots have long supply chains hiding inside them: machined parts, bearings, fasteners, wiring, sealing, calibration, and finally integration. Every interface is a potential failure point. A monolithic 3D-printed robot reduces those interfaces to nearly zero.

Fewer parts, fewer failure modes

When a robot is printed in one continuous build (the UCSD hexapod reportedly took 58 hours), you’re eliminating entire categories of production and service work:

• No motor alignment
• No gearbox wear and lubrication
• No wiring harness failures
• No connector corrosion
• No assembly-line torque specs and rework loops

For many automation buyers, “robot uptime” is really “how often do we have to babysit it.” Soft monolithic designs aim directly at that pain.

Disposable can be a feature (when it’s designed responsibly)

The research notes the robot could cost roughly US$20 to reprint. That number matters less as a headline and more as a strategy: in harsh environments, rapid replacement can beat delicate repair.

I’ve found that teams often resist “replace instead of repair” because it sounds wasteful. But if a platform is moving through mud, saltwater, dust, or radiation, the economics change. The responsible version of this strategy is exactly what the researchers hint at next: biodegradable soft robotics materials and better end-of-life planning.

How the air-powered hexapod works (and why it’s clever)

The key idea is simple: the robot’s gait is generated by a pneumatic oscillating circuit that sequences actuators using airflow—effectively creating timing and coordination without microcontrollers.

Pneumatic “logic” as embodied control

Air flows from a pump or CO₂ canister through internal channels. As pressure builds and releases in specific chambers, it triggers soft actuators in sequence, moving legs in alternating tripods (two sets of three legs). Each leg has four degrees of freedom, enabling both vertical and fore-aft motion.

This is a good reminder that “control” doesn’t have to mean “compute.” In many industrial systems, we already trust physics-based control: springs, dampers, governors, pressure regulators. Soft robotics extends that thinking.

Why it can walk underwater

Underwater locomotion is usually a nightmare for conventional robots because sealing electronics and actuators is costly and failure-prone. Pneumatic actuation plus soft materials changes the baseline: there’s less to seal, and compliance helps maintain traction and stability.

That doesn’t mean it’s ready for subsea inspection tomorrow. It means the design pattern—air-powered, monolithic, compliant bodies—has clear advantages in wet or dirty conditions.

Where AI fits: making soft robots useful at scale

A fair pushback is obvious: if the robot has no electronics, what does AI have to do with it?

AI’s role isn’t limited to onboard inference. In modern robotics programs, AI shows up across the lifecycle:

1) AI-driven design and simulation (before you print)

Soft robots are notoriously hard to model because the material deforms in complex ways. That’s exactly where AI helps:

• Surrogate models can approximate soft-body dynamics faster than full finite element simulations.
• Design optimization can search thousands of channel geometries and actuator placements to hit a target gait.
• Reinforcement learning in simulation can propose stepping patterns or pressure schedules, even if final control is implemented pneumatically.

The exciting bit is feedback: you print, test, collect motion data, update the model, and iterate. Additive manufacturing makes that loop practical.

2) Automated quality inspection for internal channels

Monolithic 3D prints can fail in non-obvious ways: partial channel blockage, layer adhesion defects, tiny leaks. In production, you’d pair these robots with machine vision inspection and pressure/flow test data. AI models can flag prints likely to fail before they ever reach a customer.

This is where “AI in robotics & automation” becomes very literal: AI helps manufacture the robot that later automates a task.

3) High-level autonomy, even if the body is non-electronic

A soft, air-powered platform can still be part of an intelligent system:

• A tether can provide air and data/power for external sensors.
• A nearby “support rover” can carry compute, cameras, and radios, while the soft robot does the risky physical interaction.
• In facilities with restricted electronics, you can keep compute outside the hazard zone and still run planning and monitoring.

AI doesn’t have to live inside the robot to make the robot intelligent.

Practical use cases: where soft, air-powered robots beat rigid machines

The UCSD hexapod is a research prototype, but the application map is pretty clear. Soft robots shine when you want safe contact, tolerance to uncertainty, and low-cost replacement.

High-radiation or EMI-heavy environments

Electronics can degrade under radiation, and electromagnetic interference can break comms and control. Pneumatic logic and soft actuation provide a path to minimal-electronics robotics, with sensitive components kept far away or eliminated.

Inspection in wet, muddy, or contaminated spaces

Culverts, storm drains, agricultural irrigation lines, flood infrastructure, and certain chemical environments punish conventional actuators. Soft bodies handle abrasion and unexpected contact better, and air actuation can be simpler to protect than motors.

Logistics and service robotics (the “soft mobility” angle)

Most warehouse robots succeed by controlling the environment: flat floors, marked lanes, controlled lighting. The real world isn’t like that.

A soft hexapod pattern is relevant when you need mobility across:

• uneven flooring or temporary ramps
• cluttered back-of-house areas
• mixed indoor/outdoor transitions

I’m not arguing that soft hexapods replace AMRs in warehouses. I am arguing that hybrid fleets will become normal: rigid wheeled robots for throughput, and compliant legged/soft robots for the edge cases that create downtime.

Engineering reality check: what still needs to improve

The promise is big, but there are limits worth being honest about.

Energy density and runtime

CO₂ cartridges delivering ~80 seconds of walking is fine for demos and certain short missions, but most commercial deployments need hours, not minutes.

The more scalable model is tethered air (as mentioned, up to three days with an external pump), or new approaches to onboard gas storage and recharging. If you’re evaluating this tech for a product roadmap, this is the first constraint to model.

Control bandwidth and precision

Pneumatic oscillators are great at producing repeatable rhythms. They’re less great at precision foot placement on demand. To make these robots operational in complex terrain, you’ll likely need:

• variable pressure regulation
• controllable valves (possibly external)
• sensing for slip, stall, or terrain height

In other words: the “no electronics” version is an important milestone, not necessarily the final product form.

Manufacturing throughput

A 58-hour print isn’t production-friendly yet. But it does establish feasibility. The manufacturing playbook will look like:

1. Reduce print time through geometry changes and tuned print parameters
2. Parallelize with printer farms
3. Add automated post-processing and pressure testing
4. Standardize modules (even in a monolithic design, you can standardize interfaces like ports)

This is exactly where automation companies can contribute: factory workflow, not just robot mechanics.

Implementation guide: how to evaluate soft robotics for your org

If you’re leading an automation program and want to explore soft, air-powered robots without getting stuck in “cool demo” territory, use these filters.

Start with the environment, not the robot

Soft robotics is strongest when the environment is the problem:

• water exposure or frequent washdowns
• high dust, grit, mud, or biofouling
• tight spaces with constant bumps and scrapes
• safety requirements for human contact

If your environment is already structured and clean, conventional robots will be cheaper and faster.

Ask the right vendor and lab questions

When you talk to partners working on soft robotics manufacturing, ask:

• What’s the unit cost at 10, 100, 1,000 units?
• What’s the failure rate in pressure tests and what defects dominate?
• How does performance drift over 24–72 hours of operation?
• What’s the maintenance model: repair kit or reprint?
• What materials roadmap exists (including biodegradable options)?

Where AI adds immediate value

Even before full autonomy, AI can deliver near-term ROI:

• Automated print inspection (vision + pressure signals)
• Predictive maintenance for pumps/regulators in tethered setups
• Terrain classification from external cameras to choose gait/pressure modes

If you want a first pilot, those are the lowest-risk entry points.

What this signals for the next wave of AI-enabled robotics

Soft, monolithic, air-powered robots are a reminder that robotics progress isn’t only about smarter software. Sometimes it’s about changing the body so the software has less to fight.

For the AI in Robotics & Automation roadmap, the direction is clear: robots will increasingly be co-designed across materials, manufacturing, and intelligence. The winners won’t be the teams with the fanciest model; they’ll be the teams that can iterate quickly from data to design to deployment.

If you’re thinking about where to place bets in 2026 planning, here’s the question I’d use internally: Which of our automation tasks fail because the environment is unpredictable—and what would change if the robot could safely deform instead of resisting?