Flagellum‐Inspired Soft Rotary Motor

Abstract

Soft robots have gained significant attention in recent years owing to their high safety in human–machine interactions and exceptional adaptability to unpredictable environments. Despite great advances, achieving continuous rotation with tunable stepping angle in soft robots remains a challenge. Herein, inspired by the stepping rotation strategy of the flagellum, an artificial soft rotary motor capable of bidirectional continuous rotation and tunable stepping angles is presented. The motor features a wide range of stepping angles (−72.5° to 73.4°), enabling it to rotate to any angle position with high resolution. The soft motor also exhibits high rotation speed (18.23 r min−1), zero‐energy position‐holding, and excellent durability. Furthermore, the potential applications of the soft rotary motors, including tuning the grasping direction of a soft gripper and adjusting the winding direction of a soft tentacle is demonstrated. This work offers a universal soft fluidic component for soft robots, endowing them with enhanced agility and movement capabilities.

Constrained Origami Artificial Muscle-Driven Robotic Manipulator Capable of Coordinating Twisting and Grasping Motions for Object Manipulation

“…Soft robotic grasping has been accomplished by using various types of artificial muscles, including pneumatic soft actuators, − smart materials, − and adaptive mechanisms. − In parallel, soft robotic twisting has also been realized based on different approaches. However, twisting motions in these studies can only achieve a very limited rotation angle and are not independent as they are often coupled with other motions, such as bending and linear motions. − Moreover, robotic gripping and twisting motions are rarely achieved simultaneously in the same design. Instead, different mechanisms or actuation approaches are used.…”

Reprogrammable Metamaterial Processors for Soft Machines

“…[26,27] Traditional pneumatic soft robots typically require microcontrollers, relays, and solenoid valves to enable actuators to achieve desired deformations. [28][29][30][31][32][33] However, the incorporation of these rigid components compromises the inherent compliance of soft robots. Therefore, creating fully soft, reprogrammable robots has been a grand challenge.…”