Light-Triggered Soft Artificial Muscles: Molecular-Level Amplification of Actuation Control Signals

Abstract

The principle of control signal amplification is found in all actuation systems, from engineered devices through to the operation of biological muscles. However, current engineering approaches require the use of hard and bulky external switches or valves, incompatible with both the properties of emerging soft artificial muscle technology and those of the bioinspired robotic systems they enable. To address this deficiency a biomimetic molecular-level approach is developed that employs light, with its excellent spatial and temporal control properties, to actuate soft, pH-responsive hydrogel artificial muscles. Although this actuation is triggered by light, it is largely powered by the resulting excitation and runaway chemical reaction of a light-sensitive acid autocatalytic solution in which the actuator is immersed. This process produces actuation strains of up to 45% and a three-fold chemical amplification of the controlling light-trigger, realising a new strategy for the creation of highly functional soft actuating systems.

Editorial: Biology-Inspired Engineering and Engineering-Inspired Biology

“…The term biology-inspired engineering refers to the fact that biology has been an important inspiration for developments in all aspects of engineering, for example the design of robots. Bio-inspired computation (Manoonpong and Tetzlaff, 2018;Manoonpong et al, 2020), sensors (Steffen et al), actuators (Vanderborght et al, 2013;Dicker et al, 2017;Lee and Oh, 2019;Lund et al, 2019), structures (Tramsen et al, 2018;Tan et al, 2019;Shao et al, 2020), and materials (Rafsanjani et al, 2018;Wang et al, 2020) have enabled robots to produce robust and comparable behaviors to their biological counterparts. Owing to the biologically comparable behaviors, interdisciplinary biologists tend to flip the approach, i.e., engineering-inspired biology, whereby engineering systems and principles are utilized to initiate and test new hypotheses in biological research.…”

Design of a Highly Biomimetic and Fully-Actuated Robotic Finger

“…They usually co-work with linkages, camshafts, gears and cables for transmitting the force from the actuator to fingers [21]. Although there are several artificial muscles available that are mentioned in [22], we still choose electric servo motor (Tower Pro TM MG996R) together with driven cables for our actuation solution because of their high accuracy, high torque and low cost [6,23].…”

Antibacterial efficiency of silver nanoparticles-loaded locust bean gum/polyvinyl alcohol hydrogels

“…Hydrogels are distinguished by many properties, including a stable and modifiable structure, biocompatibility, antibacterial effectivity, non-toxicity and their easily swelling (hydrophilicity) properties [5]. Because of that advantage, researchers use them in various fields such as in antibacterial purposes, medicine, foodstuffs and in controlled drug delivery systems [6], such as tissue scaffolds [7], contact lenses [8], drug delivery devices [9], wound dressings [10,11] and artificial muscles [12].…”