Affiliation:
1. Department of Material Science and Engineering, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA.
2. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA.
3. California Nanosystems Institute, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
Abstract
As the field of soft robotics advances, full autonomy becomes highly sought after, especially if robot motion can be powered by environmental energy. This would present a self-sustained approach in terms of both energy supply and motion control. Now, autonomous movement can be realized by leveraging out-of-equilibrium oscillatory motion of stimuli-responsive polymers under a constant light source. It would be more advantageous if environmental energy could be scavenged to power robots. However, generating oscillation becomes challenging under the limited power density of available environmental energy sources. Here, we developed fully autonomous soft robots with self-sustainability based on self-excited oscillation. Aided by modeling, we have successfully reduced the required input power density to around one-Sun level through a liquid crystal elastomer (LCE)–based bilayer structure. The autonomous motion of the low-intensity LCE/elastomer bilayer oscillator “LiLBot” under low energy supply was achieved by high photothermal conversion, low modulus, and high material responsiveness simultaneously. The LiLBot features tunable peak-to-peak amplitudes from 4 to 72 degrees and frequencies from 0.3 to 11 hertz. The oscillation approach offers a strategy for designing autonomous, untethered, and sustainable small-scale soft robots, such as a sailboat, walker, roller, and synchronized flapping wings.
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Subject
Artificial Intelligence,Control and Optimization,Computer Science Applications,Mechanical Engineering
Cited by
11 articles.
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