Designing minimal and scalable insect-inspired multi-locomotion millirobots

Zhakypov, Zhenishbek; Mori, Kazuaki; Hosoda, Koh; Paik, Jamie

doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1388-8

Cited by 199 publications

(129 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Inspired by these intelligent adaptations in nature, many efforts have been made on the exploration of various untethered small‐scale (from several centimeters down to nanometers in all dimensions) robots that can be driven by chemical fuels, light, acoustic radiation force, electrical and magnetic fields, etc. These actuation mechanisms have been employed to design various small‐sized, high‐speed, and motion‐controllable robots for environmental and biomedical applications .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconfiguration, Camouflage, and Color‐Shifting for Bioinspired Adaptive Hydrogel‐Based Millirobots

Cui

et al. 2020

Adv Funct Materials

185

160

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Nature provides much inspiration for developing soft millirobots. However, compared with smart and adaptations of lives in nature, these robotic systems still suffer from insufficiency of intelligence. Here, a new untethered soft millirobot with magnetic actuation in the head and function in the tail is presented via implementing control, actuation, and sensing directly in the materials, thereby endowing robots with multimodal locomotion and environment‐adaptive functions. Due to the soft and asymmetric structure, the millirobot not only shows robust multimodal locomotion, including controllable and transformable crawling, swinging and rolling, but also achieves an excellent capability of helical propulsion in water. Moreover, the robot also possesses outstanding obstacle‐crossing abilities, including helically propelling over obstacles (>2 body length), crawling within a 2 mm height tunnel and swinging through a 450 µm width channel. Furthermore, the robot can even squeeze its body to crawl through a tube easily via near‐infrared irradiation, which triggers the osmotic shrinking of its body. Notably, the robots also possess extraordinary environment‐adaptive functions, for example, leptocephali‐like optical camouflage in water, octopus‐like controllable delivery and variable appearance via visible color–shifting for interaction with the changing environment. These smart robotic systems would be of benefit in various fields via seamless integration of bioinspired design and smart materials.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconfiguration, Camouflage, and Color‐Shifting for Bioinspired Adaptive Hydrogel‐Based Millirobots

Cui

et al. 2020

Adv Funct Materials

185

160

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“…Owing to the advances in natural smart systems, numerous responsive materials that can transform dynamic and reversible shape deformations into locomotions have emerged under various external stimuli such as light, [1][2][3][4][5] humidity, [6][7][8][9][10][11][12] electric field, [13][14][15][16][17][18] organic solvents, [19][20][21] heat, [22] magnetism, [23][24][25] or a combination of multiple types of stimuli thereof. [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] Such materials exhibit the potential for applications in soft robotics, artificial muscles, and smart devices.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent Advances in Photoactuators and Their Applications in Intelligent Bionic Movements

Zhou

Liu

2020

Advanced Optical Materials

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Photoactuators that can produce a reversible mechanical deformation under light stimuli have attracted tremendous interest in the recent years owing to the advantages of abundant availability of resources, remote and accurate control, and applicability in soft robots, sensors and biomimetic devices. In this study, the recent advances in photoactuators related to actuation mechanisms (photothermal and photochemical), fabricaton from different configurations and types of materials, and their potential applications in bionic movements are reviewed. The opportunities and challenges in this field are also discussed, such as fabricating actuators with robust mechanical properties and superior actuating performance, seeking effective actuation mechanisms, and widening the range of applications. This review provides an insight into designing high‐performance, multi‐functional photoactuators and serves as a motivation for their development in future.

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“…Inspired by the fabrication method of the printed circuit boards, researchers proposed the layer-by-layer manufacturing process to minimize the manual assembly required in the fabrication of complex 3D structures and mechanisms in meso-scale [1], [2]. This manufacturing method has since found application in robotic fields that rely on fast and costeffective iterations for exploring different design principles fields such as educational robotics [3], bioinspired robotics [4], [5], and swarm robotics [6], [7]. However, due to the limited options for quasi-2D functional layers, most mechanisms and robots that are produced within this framework still require an assembly step to integrate functional components such as actuators, sensors, and friction adjusting layers [8]- [13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stretchable Kirigami Components for Composite Meso-Scale Robots

Firouzeh

Higashisaka

Nagato

et al. 2020

IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett.

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Layer-by-layer manufacturing of composite mechanisms allows fast and cost-effective fabrication of customized robots in millimeter and centimeter scales which is promising for research fields that rely on frequent and numerous physical iterations. Due to the limited number of components that can be directly integrated in composite structures, however, often an assembly step is necessary which diminishes the benefits of this manufacturing method. Inspired by the Japanese craft of cutting (kiri-) paper (-gami), Kirigami, we introduce quasi-2D and highly stretchable functional Kirigami layers for direct integration into the composite mechanisms. Depending on the material and geometrical design; functional Kirigami layers can perform as flat springs, stretchable electronics, sensors or actuators. These components will facilitate the design and manufacturing of composite robots for different applications. To illustrate the effectiveness of these components, we designed and realized a foldable composite inchworm robot with three Kirigami layers serving as actuator, sensor and contact pad with directional friction. We elaborate on the working principle of each layer and report on their combined performance in the robot.

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Designing minimal and scalable insect-inspired multi-locomotion millirobots

Cited by 199 publications

References 28 publications

Reconfiguration, Camouflage, and Color‐Shifting for Bioinspired Adaptive Hydrogel‐Based Millirobots

Reconfiguration, Camouflage, and Color‐Shifting for Bioinspired Adaptive Hydrogel‐Based Millirobots

Recent Advances in Photoactuators and Their Applications in Intelligent Bionic Movements

Stretchable Kirigami Components for Composite Meso-Scale Robots

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