Soft Robotics for Chemists

Abstract

In areas from assembly of machines [1] to surgery, [2] and from deactivation of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to unmanned flight, robotics is an important and rapidly growing field of science and technology. It is currently dominated by robots having hard body plans-constructions largely of metal structural elements and conventional joints [3] -and actuated by electrical motors, or pneumatic or hydraulic systems. Handling fragile objects-from the ordinary (fruit) to the important (internal organs)-is a frequent task whose importance is often overlooked and is difficult for conventional hard robots; moving across unknown, irregular, and shifting terrain is also. Soft robots may provide solutions to both of these classes of problems, and to others. Methods of designing and fabricating soft robots are, however, much less developed than those for hard robots. We wish to expand the methods and materials of chemistry and soft-materials science into applications in fully soft robots.A robot is an automatically controlled, programmable machine.[4] The limbs of animals or insects-structures typically based on rigid segments connected by joints with constrained ranges of motion [5]

Light‐Driven Soft Robot Mimics Caterpillar Locomotion in Natural Scale

“…In particular, continuous, rather than discrete, deformation allows for adaptation to many situations the robot may encounter. Recently developed soft robots are able to perform various tasks in confined spaces, [3] grip arbitrary-shaped objects [4,5] and jump, mimicking biological behaviors. [6,7] Caterpillar terrestrial locomotion had been thoroughly studied [8,9] and their kinematics, notably their traveling deformation wave locomotion, has been an inspiration for soft robot designs.…”

Transport of particles in liquid crystals

“…[2][3][4][5][6] The grand challenge is to establish how to construct different forms of SAMM. The two important elements are (i) elementary moving units, or "meta-atoms", and (ii) the surrounding medium that controls them.…”

Dielectric Elastomer Based “Grippers” for Soft Robotics

“…This has led to the development of pneumatically actuated soft robotics [1] in which air pressure not only provides continuous actuation as well as forces over large distances but provides local conformability by acting on a soft skin. Ideally, a soft robot also has the characteristics that the deformation of the contact surfaces can be preprogrammed into the body shape, thereby simplifying control mechanism for performing complex motions.…”