An open-source, open-hardware soft robot platform for search and rescue and confined space operations.
Get started with Documentation View the repository on GitHub
What is SPROUT?
SPROUT is a fully open-source, open-hardware soft robot built for search-and-rescue applications. It pairs a pneumatically-actuated “vine robot” body with a field-deployable compute box that handles onboard computation, power regulation, actuator control, sensing, and networking.
Everything needed to build your own SPROUT — mechanical CAD, PCB designs, bills of materials, assembly instructions, and the full software/ROS 2 stack — is released here under the MIT license.
Site Map
This site mirrors the folder structure of the SPROUT_Design directory in the repository, so every page here has a matching source folder you can browse, clone, or download.
| Section | What’s inside | Source folder |
|---|---|---|
| Documentation | Bill of materials, enclosure prep, assembly, and wiring guides for the compute box | SPROUT_Design/Documentation (photos and BOM spreadsheet only — guides are authored directly on this site) |
| CAD | SolidWorks/STEP models for the compute box and robot base | SPROUT_Design/CAD |
| Electronics | Custom Arduino shield PCB (KiCad project, gerbers, schematics) | SPROUT_Design/Electronics |
| Software | Jetson bootstrap guide and the sprout_ros ROS 2 stack |
SPROUT_Design/Code |
Getting Help
Have a question, run into an issue building your own SPROUT, or spot something that needs fixing in the docs? Open an issue on GitHub — it’s the best way to reach the team and helps other builders who run into the same thing.
Citation
A paper describing SPROUT is available on arXiv. If you use SPROUT in your research, please cite it using the entry below.
@misc{valdivia2026sprout,
title={SPROUT: The Open-Source Soft Growing Robot for Search and Rescue},
author={Antonio Alvarez Valdivia and Ciera McFarland and Robert Reeve and Ankush Dhawan and Chad Council and Megan Richardson and Margaret McGuinness and Nathaniel Hanson},
year={2026},
eprint={2609.17781},
archivePrefix={arXiv},
primaryClass={cs.RO},
url={https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.17781},
}
License
SPROUT is released under the MIT License.
Team
A joint project of the University of Notre Dame and MIT Lincoln Laboratory.
Distribution Statement
DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited. This material is based upon work supported by the Department of the Air Force under Air Force Contract No. FA8702-15-D-0001 or FA8702-25-D-B002. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of the Air Force. © 2026 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Subject to FAR52.227-11 Patent Rights - Ownership by the contractor (May 2014) Delivered to the U.S. Government with Unlimited Rights, as defined in DFARS Part 252.227-7013 or 7014 (Feb 2014). Notwithstanding any copyright notice, U.S. Government rights in this work are defined by DFARS 252.227-7013 or DFARS 252.227-7014 as detailed above. Use of this work other than as specifically authorized by the U.S. Government may violate any copyrights that exist in this work.