Multi-functional soft-bodied jellyfish-like swimming

Ren, Ziyu; Hu, Wenqi; Dong, Xinmin; Sitti, Metin

doi:10.1038/s41467-019-10549-7

Cited by 431 publications

(423 citation statements)

References 56 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

417

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Finally, the hydrogel‐based millirobots with NdFeB particles solely in the head (actuation from the 1 mm length head and function from the 5 mm length tail) were facilely obtained in large quantity via cutting the hydrogel film with certain widths and lengths (174 µm thick). Different from ferrite materials, NdFeB microparticles have high remanent magnetization and larger magnetic coercivity, which ensure that the magnetization profile (M) can be maintained during magnetic actuation, thus enabling excellent magnetic actuation of robots . Moreover, this unique design of magnetization profile solely within the head of iRobot enables greater potential not only to realize high mobility, but also to achieve outstanding functions.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Cui

et al. 2020

Adv Funct Materials

185

160

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Cui

et al. 2020

Adv Funct Materials

185

160

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In magnetic microrobotics, the microrobot body can be made of hard or soft magnetic materials. The most common microrobotic magnetic materials are hard NdFeB microparticles,16–24 superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs),25–29 CrO 2 powder,30 FePt nanoparticles, and other hard or soft magnetic micro/nanoscale particles, molecules, discs, or wires embedded inside or absorbed onto the surface of the robot body. Moreover, nickel, cobalt, and other magnetic materials can be also sputtered on the robot outer surface as a nanofilm coating.…”

Section: Pros and Cons Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pros and Cons: Magnetic versus Optical Microrobots

2020

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Mobile microrobotics has emerged as a new robotics field within the last decade to create untethered tiny robots that can access and operate in unprecedented, dangerous, or hard‐to‐reach small spaces noninvasively toward disruptive medical, biotechnology, desktop manufacturing, environmental remediation, and other potential applications. Magnetic and optical actuation methods are the most widely used actuation methods in mobile microrobotics currently, in addition to acoustic and biological (cell‐driven) actuation approaches. The pros and cons of these actuation methods are reported here, depending on the given context. They can both enable long‐range, fast, and precise actuation of single or a large number of microrobots in diverse environments. Magnetic actuation has unique potential for medical applications of microrobots inside nontransparent tissues at high penetration depths, while optical actuation is suitable for more biotechnology, lab‐/organ‐on‐a‐chip, and desktop manufacturing types of applications with much less surface penetration depth requirements or with transparent environments. Combining both methods in new robot designs can have a strong potential of combining the pros of both methods. There is still much progress needed in both actuation methods to realize the potential disruptive applications of mobile microrobots in real‐world conditions.

show abstract

“…Second, Gauss' Theorema Egregium implies that conformal wrapping of planar surfaces, such as flat sheets, around nonplanar ones, like the surface of hemispherical droplets, cannot be achieved unless stretching and bending (as in origami‐inspired structures) and/or cuts (as in kirigami) are included in the wrapping structure. Therefore, droplet self‐wrapping necessarily involves stretching as well as bending of the substrate; conversely, continuous substrates can be tailored with cuts to achieve predetermined self‐wrapping into 3D spheroidal shapes and thus maximize the ratio of surface to enclosed volume . Third, downscaling benefits elastocapillary folding, since L EC scales with sheet thickness t to the power of 3/2 and thinner substrates are associated with smaller critical lengths.…”

Section: Types Of Capillary Self‐foldingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self‐Folding Using Capillary Forces

Kwok

Huang

Mastrangeli

et al. 2019

Adv Materials Inter

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Self‐folding broadly refers to the assembly of 3D structures by bending, curving, and folding without the need for manual or mechanized intervention. Self‐folding is scientifically interesting because self‐folded structures, from plant leaves to gut villi to cerebral gyri, abound in nature. From an engineering perspective, self‐folding of sub‐millimeter‐sized structures addresses major hurdles in nano‐ and micro‐manufacturing. This review focuses on self‐folding using surface tension or capillary forces derived from the minimization of liquid interfacial area. Due to favorable downscaling with length, at small scales capillary forces become extremely large relative to forces that scale with volume, such as gravity or inertia, and to forces that scale with area, such as elasticity. The major demonstrated classes of capillary force assisted self‐folding are discussed. These classes include the use of rigid or soft and micro‐ or nano‐patterned precursors that are assembled using a variety of liquids such as water, molten polymers, and liquid metals. The authors outline the underlying physics and highlight important design considerations that maximize rigidity, strength, and yield of the assembled structures. They also discuss applications of capillary self‐folding structures in engineering and medicine. Finally, the authors conclude by summarizing standing challenges and describing future trends.

show abstract

Multi-functional soft-bodied jellyfish-like swimming

Cited by 431 publications

References 56 publications

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

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

Pros and Cons: Magnetic versus Optical Microrobots

Self‐Folding Using Capillary Forces

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About