Untethered soft robotic matter with passive control of shape morphing and propulsion
By Arda Kotikian, C. McMahan, E. Davidson, Jalilah M. Muhammad, Robert D. Weeks, Chiara Daraio, J. Lewis. Science Robotics, 2019
399 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Untethered, soft robotic matter repeatedly self-morphs and propels in response to thermal stimuli via active hinges. There is growing interest in creating untethered soft robotic matter that can repeatedly shape-morph and self-propel in response to external stimuli. Toward this goal, we printed soft robotic matter composed of liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) bilayers with orthogonal director alignment and different nematic-to-isotropic transition temperatures (TNI) to form active hinges that interconnect polymeric tiles. When heated above their respective actuation temperatures, the printed LCE hinges exhibit a large, reversible bending response. Their actuation response is programmed by varying their chemistry and printed architecture. Through an integrated design and additive manufacturing approach, we created passively controlled, untethered soft robotic matter that adopts task-specific configurations on demand, including a self-twisting origami polyhedron that exhibits three stable configurations and a “rollbot” that assembles into a pentagonal prism and self-rolls in programmed responses to thermal stimuli.
Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, Condensed Matter Physics, Mechanical Engineering
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9236cba044dccaffe887f26bdc0a2bf4db5df0c0
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In Biomedical Engineering
Citations in the corpus
- Smart polymers and nanocomposites for 3D and 4D printing (2020, background): “LECs undergo contraction/expansion along the mesogen direction through a phase change at the nematic-isotropic temperature (TNI) [232], [233].”