Credit: Image courtesy of University of Houston
If Star Wars’ R2-D2 is your idea of a robot, think again. Researchers led by a University of Houston engineer have reported a new class of soft robot, composed of ultrathin sensing, actuating electronics and temperature-sensitive artificial muscle that can adapt to the environment and crawl, similar to the movement of an inchworm or caterpillar.
Cunjiang Yu, Bill D. Cook Assistant Professor of mechanical engineering, said potential applications range from surgery and rehabilitation to search and rescue in natural disasters or on the battlefield. Because the robot body changes shape in response to its surroundings, it can slip through narrow crevices to search for survivors in the rubble left by an earthquake or bombing, he said.

“They sense the change in environment and adapt to slip through,” he said.
These soft robots, made of soft artificial muscle and ultrathin deformable sensors and actuators, have significant advantages over the traditional rigid robots used for automation and other physical tasks.
The researchers said their work, published in the journal Advanced Materials, took its inspiration from nature. “Many creatures, such as inchworms that have completely soft compliant bodies without any rigid components (e.g., bones), exhibit unprecedented abilities in adapting their shapes and morphologies and unique locomotion behaviors,” they wrote.
Traditional soft robots lack the ability to adapt to their environments or move on their own.
The prototype adaptive soft robot includes a liquid crystal elastomer, doped with carbon black nanoparticles to enhance thermal conductivity, as the artificial muscle, combined with ultrathin mesh shaped stretchable thermal actuators and silicon-based light sensors. The thermal actuators provide heat to activate the robot.
The prototype is small – 28.6 millimeters in length, or just over one inch – but Yu said it could easily be scaled up. That’s the next step, along with experimenting with various types of sensors. While the prototype uses heat-sensitive sensors, it could employ smart materials activated by light or other cues, he said.
“This is the first of its kind,” Yu said. “You can use other sensors, depending on what you want it to do.”
Learn more: Researchers Design ‘Soft’ Robots that Can Move on Their Own
The Latest on: Soft robots
via Google News
The Latest on: Soft robots
- Soft Exoskeleton (Exosuits) and Wearable Robots Market Current Trends Competitive Landscape, Sales, Share, Outlook 2028 By MRIon August 3, 2022 at 12:03 am
The Global Soft Exoskeleton (Exosuits) and Wearable Robots Report gives a comprehensive overview of the sector, ...
- Soft Robotics Market In 2022 : Industry Growth, Top Players, Segmentation and Forecast to 2028 with Top Countries Dataon August 1, 2022 at 4:52 pm
Aug 01, 2022 (The Expresswire) -- "Soft Robotics Market" Insights 2022 By Types, Applications, Regions and Forecast to 2028. The global Soft Robotics ...
- Robots Learn To Play With Play Dough – Better Than People With Just 10 Minutes of Dataon July 29, 2022 at 9:19 pm
Robots manipulate soft, deformable material into various shapes from visual inputs in a new system that could one day enable better home assistants. Many of us feel an overwhelming sense of joy from ...
- Self-repairing fish robot brings hope to plastic crisison July 28, 2022 at 6:45 pm
Chinese scientists have developed a fish-shaped light-actuated swimming robot that can "eat" microplastics in water bodies and repair itself if damaged. This ...
- The Absolute Best Robot Mops, According To Rigorous Testingon July 28, 2022 at 11:35 am
To determine the best robot mops on the market, we put several models through weeks of testing, evaluating their cleaning performance, navigation abilities and more. Here are our top picks.
- A new type of soft robotic actuator that can be scaled down to just one centimeteron July 28, 2022 at 7:26 am
A team of researchers at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia's Bioinspired Soft Robotics Laboratory has developed a new pleat-based soft robotic actuator that can be used in a variety of sizes, down to ...
- Scientists turn dead spiders into robots that can grip objectson July 27, 2022 at 3:13 pm
Scientists have worked out how to turn dead wolf spiders into “necrobiotic spiders” that can mechanically grip onto objects. Mechanical engineers from Rice University in the US have repurposed the ...
- Scientists created ‘zombie’ spiders — and people are freaking out: ‘So f–ked up’on July 26, 2022 at 1:23 pm
Texas scientists have developed veritable spider robots by robotically manipulating dead arachnids so they can grasp objects with their legs, as seen in a spine-tingling video. “It happens to be the ...
- How elephant's flexible trunk can improve robotson July 25, 2022 at 3:59 am
According to a recent study, an elephant’s folded skin plays a significant part in stretching its trunk besides its muscles. The findings could improve robotics, which today are typically built for ...
via Bing News