Meniscus-Climbing System Inspired 3D Printed Fully Soft Robotics with Highly Flexible Three-Dimensional Locomotion at the Liquid-Air Interface.

Journal: ACS nano
Published Date: Nov 22, 2022

Abstract

Soft robotics locomotion at the liquid-air interface has become more and more important for an intelligent society. However, existing locomotion of soft robotics is limited to two dimensions. It remains a formidable challenge to realize three-dimensional locomotion (, , and axes) at the liquid-air two-phase interface due to the unbalanced mechanical environment. Inspired by meniscus-climbing beetle larva , the mechanism of a three-phase (liquid-solid-air) contact line is here proposed to address the aforementioned challenge. A corresponding 3D printed fully soft robotics (named larvobot) based on photoresponsive liquid crystal elastomer/carbon nanotubes composites endowed repeatable programmable deformation and high degree-of-freedom locomotion. Three-dimensional locomotion at the liquid-air interface including twisting and rolling-up has been developed. The equation of motion is established by analyzing the mechanics along the solid-water surface of the larvobot. Meanwhile, ANSYS is used to calculate the stress distribution, which coincides with the speculation. Moreover, soft robotics is remotely driven by light in a precise spatiotemporal control, which provides a great advantage for applications. As an example, we demonstrate the controllable locomotion of the soft robotics inside closed tubes, which could be used for drug delivery and intelligent transportation.

Authors

  • Yang Wang
    Department of General Surgery The First People's Hospital of Yunnan Province, The Affiliated Hospital of Kunming University of Science and Technology Kunming China.
  • Qingbao Guan
    State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Institute of Functional Materials, Donghua University, Research Base of Textile Materials for Flexible Electronics and Biomedical Applications (China Textile Engineering Society), Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Nano-Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine, 2999 North Renmin Road, Shanghai201620, P. R. China.
  • Dong Lei
    Department of Cardiology, Shanghai 9th People's Hospital, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Tissue Engineering, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai200011, P. R. China.
  • Rasoul Esmaeely Neisiany
    Department of Materials and Polymer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Hakim Sabzevari University, Sabzevar9617976487, Iran.
  • Yue Guo
    Department of Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiation Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland.
  • Shijia Gu
    State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Institute of Functional Materials, Donghua University, Research Base of Textile Materials for Flexible Electronics and Biomedical Applications (China Textile Engineering Society), Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Nano-Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine, 2999 North Renmin Road, Shanghai201620, P. R. China.
  • Zhengwei You
    State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Institute of Functional Materials, Donghua University, Research Base of Textile Materials for Flexible Electronics and Biomedical Applications (China Textile Engineering Society), Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Nano-Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine, 2999 North Renmin Road, Shanghai201620, P. R. China.

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