Bamboo-Inspired Morphological Design of Service-Robot Trunks for Xiang–Gan Heritage Museums

Revolutionary heritage museums in the Xiang–Gan region provide a bounded context for studying how service-robot trunk morphology can respond to representative needs for height adaptation, interface orientation, and constrained indoor operation. In this setting, a robot’s form is considered alongside its service function as a potential reference to Xiang–Gan red-culture heritage, although visitor interpretation is not evaluated here. This computational design study translates bamboo node–internode segmentation, hollow taper, nodal reinforcement, and compliant bending into explicit morphological, structural, and control variables. Three conditions were defined: a conventional engineering baseline, a culturally styled condition reserved for future evaluation, and a bamboo-inspired coupled condition. Kinematic analysis, linear structural finite-element analysis, and sensitivity analysis were used to compare the baseline and coupled conditions under documented assumptions. The coupled condition produced 74.1% of the baseline composite kinematic coverage index and reduced calculated mass by approximately 7.8%, but it also reduced the calculated bending stiffness by approximately 10.5% and the mass-specific stiffness by approximately 3.0% under the stated linear model. The exploratory analyses indicated 95.7% retention of the baseline feasible composite coverage and a higher index normalized by active-control-variable count, but these quantities are definition-dependent computational sampling results. The findings identify trade-offs in translating bamboo-inspired morphology into a service-robot trunk and highlight joint stiffness, passive extension, and contact behavior as parameters requiring physical calibration. They do not establish physical robot performance, collision safety, cultural effects, or museum deployment.