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Perching significantly enhances the energy efficiency and operational versatility of aerial robots. This article introduces a passive and tunable perching mechanism designed for smooth surfaces. The design features a bistable mechanism (BM) with a soft suction cup, augmented by two sets of shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators for active tuning. The BM enables rapid attachment upon surface contact. A set of SMA wires can increase the BM's triggering force to handle high contact speeds, while a set of SMA springs attached to the suction cup's edges can pull the cup to handle orientation misalignment. Experiments are conducted to characterize how the SMA actuators influence the BM's triggering force and the suction cup's displacement under continuous steady‐state low‐voltage heating. Additional experiments demonstrate fast tuning using momentary high‐voltage heating of the SMA actuators to enhance energy efficiency. The mechanism enables successful perching on smooth surfaces and adapt to varying contact speeds and misalignments when properly tuned for three scenarios: pendulum‐based perching, ground perching, and ceiling perching. With its tuning capability, the perching mechanism can alleviate the need for precise motion control for an aerial robot during perching, expanding the applications of aerial robots in areas like environmental monitoring or infrastructure inspection. 

Abstract Shape-morphing robots can change their morphology to fulfill different tasks in varying environments, but existing shape-morphing capability is not embedded in a robot’s body, requiring bulky supporting equipment. Here, we report an embedded shape-morphing scheme with the shape actuation, sensing, and locking, all embedded in a robot’s body. We showcase this embedded scheme using three morphing robotic systems: 1) self-sensing shape-morphing grippers that can adapt to objects for adaptive grasping; 2) a quadrupedal robot that can morph its body shape for different terrestrial locomotion modes (walk, crawl, or horizontal climb); 3) an untethered robot that can morph its limbs’ shape for amphibious locomotion. We also create a library of embedded morphing modules to demonstrate the versatile programmable shapes (e.g., torsion, 3D bending, surface morphing, etc.). Our embedded morphing scheme offers a promising avenue for robots to reconfigure their morphology in an embedded manner that can adapt to different environments on demand.