A New Strategy of Discretionarily Reconfigurable Actuators Based on Self‐Healing Elastomers for Diverse Soft Robots

Abstract

Actuators have shown great promise in many fields including soft robotics. Since reconfiguration allows actuators to change their actuation mode, it is considered a key characteristic for new‐generation adaptive actuators. However, it remains a challenge to design simple and universal methods to fabricate actuators that can be reconfigured to allow diverse actuation modes. Here, a macroscopically discretionary healing‐assembly strategy to fabricate reconfigurable soft actuators based on intrinsic self‐healing poly(dimethylglyoxime‐urethane) (PDOU) elastomers is developed. The PDOU elastomers with different degrees of crosslinking show different responsiveness to solvents, and are seamlessly healed. Crosslinked and non‐crosslinked PDOU elastomers as building units are healing‐assembled into actuators/robots with diverse actuation behaviors. Notably, the assembled actuators/robots are readily reprogrammed to exhibit multiple actuation modes by simply tailoring and reassembling without any external stimuli. This work paves a new, simple, powerful, and universal method to construct sophisticated soft robots.

Mass Production of 2D Manifolds of Graphene Oxide by Shear Flow

“…Next, we demonstrate that a single GO mesotube can be used as a multifunctional sensor for perceiving vibration, temperature, and human artery pulse pressure. Because the GO mesotubes operate as a sensor in wet conditions, they are highly likely to be used as soft robotics [26][27][28][29] or electronic skin. [30][31][32][33] Recently, flexible, affordable, and elastic wearable electronics have been highlighted for monitoring human biomedical signals.…”

“…The GO mesotubes behaved like a soft gel with a Young's modulus of 974 Pa and were robust to 10 5 cycles of bending tests, rendering them promising candidates as wet sensors for soft robotics [26][27][28][29] and electronic skins. [30][31][32][33] As a proof of concept, we demonstrated that a single GO mesotube can be used as a wet-conditioned sensor for monitoring mechanical vibration and human artery pulse pressure.…”

Processing of Self‐Healing Polymers for Soft Robotics

“…Reproduced with permission. [ 185 ] Copyright 2021, Wiley‐VCH. b) Heart with LEDs that can light up, incorporating a conductive self‐healing polymer.…”

“…However, with reversible (physico)chemical bonds these couplings can be made reversibly and modules can be separated from the system by mechanical force, for example, cutting. Lou et al [185] used the stacking technique (Section 4.1) to manufacture reconfigurable bilayer actuator modules for soft robotics, composed of two layers of elastomers based on reversible poly(dimethylglyoxime-urethane) and hydrogen bond cross-links that differ in cross-link density (Figure 8a). The bilayer actuator responds to a solvent stimulus (chloroform) due to the difference in the cross-linking densities of the two layers.…”

Modular Assembly of Soft Machines via Multidirectional Reclosable Fasteners

“…However, these soft connections perform low-alignment precision and require extra actuation appendages resulting in the complexity of systems. In addition, adhesive connections, including glued adhesion, [30][31][32][33] hot-melt adhesion, [34,35] and self-healing elastomer, [36][37][38][39] are connection methods without introducing any rigid or soft connection counterparts. However, these connections either are irreversible permanent connections or still need extra actuation appendages.…”