Liquid metal droplet motion transferred from an alkaline solution by a robot arm.

Journal: Lab on a chip
Published Date: Nov 22, 2022

Abstract

The excellent motion performance of gallium-based liquid metals (LMs) upon the application of a modest electric field has provided a new opportunity for the development of autonomous soft robots. However, the locomotion of LMs often appears in an alkaline solution, which hampers the application under other different conditions. In this work, a novel robot arm is designed to transfer the motion of the LM from an alkaline solution in a synchronous drive mode. The liquid metal droplet (LMD) at the bottom of the robot arm is actuated using a DC voltage to provide the driving force for the system. By introducing an end effector at the center of the robot arm, the synchronous motion of the system is replicated and can be applied to different situations. The theoretical understanding of continuous electrowetting (CEW) at the LM interface is explained, and then the motion performance of the robot arm against the function of the applied voltage and driving direction is investigated. Moreover, several applications using this robot arm, such as pattern drawing, cargo transportation, and drug concentration detection, are demonstrated. The presented robot arm has the potential to observably expand the application fields of the LM.

Authors

  • Ye Tao
    Department of Gastroenterology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, China.
  • Changrui Shi
    State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, Harbin Institute of Technology, West Da-zhi Street 92, Harbin, Heilongjiang 150001, People's Republic of China. rykhit@hit.edu.cn.
  • Feiyang Han
    State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, Harbin Institute of Technology, West Da-zhi Street 92, Harbin, Heilongjiang 150001, People's Republic of China. rykhit@hit.edu.cn.
  • Ruizhe Yang
    State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, Harbin Institute of Technology, West Da-zhi Street 92, Harbin, Heilongjiang 150001, People's Republic of China. rykhit@hit.edu.cn.
  • Rui Xue
    Engineering Technology Research Center of Shanxi Province for Opto-Electric Information and Instrument, Taiyuan 030051, China. xuerui@nuc.edu.cn.
  • Zhenyou Ge
    State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, Harbin Institute of Technology, West Da-zhi Street 92, Harbin, Heilongjiang 150001, People's Republic of China. rykhit@hit.edu.cn.
  • Wenshang Guo
    State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, Harbin Institute of Technology, West Da-zhi Street 92, Harbin, Heilongjiang 150001, People's Republic of China. rykhit@hit.edu.cn.
  • Weiyu Liu
    Chang'an University, Middle-Section of Nan'er Huan Road, Xi'an 710000, China.
  • Yukun Ren
    State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, Harbin Institute of Technology, West Da-zhi Street 92, Harbin, Heilongjiang 150001, People's Republic of China. rykhit@hit.edu.cn.

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