Bioinspired footed soft robot with unidirectional all-terrain mobility

Abstract Soft robots consisting of stimuli-responsive soft materials are expected to achieve tasks otherwise impossible by robots with conventional rigid counterparts. In spite of good progress made over the past several years, robot mobility on various surfaces remains challenging. Here, we report a footed soft robot with good terrain adaptability and large load carrying capability by mimicking the anisotropic friction of gecko setae and the gait of caterpillars. The robot, termed as Geca-Robot, is composed of gecko-inspired triangular micropillars as the feet and alternating cuboids of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and graphene–PDMS as the muscle. Geca-Robot is remotely powered by light with wavelengths ranging from ultraviolet to infrared, and moves with a caterpillar-like gait. The gecko-inspired feet allows Geca-Robot to unidirectionally travel on terrains of varying roughness, slope, and dryness with a wide working temperature range, and to carry loads weighing approximately 50 times its own mass. Geca-Robot will inspire the creation of further soft robot designs for various natural terrains.

[1]  T. Aida,et al.  Thermoresponsive actuation enabled by permittivity switching in an electrostatically anisotropic hydrogel. , 2015, Nature materials.

[2]  Hui-Ming Cheng,et al.  Synthesis of high-quality graphene with a pre-determined number of layers , 2009 .

[3]  Urmas Johanson,et al.  Ionic and Capacitive Artificial Muscle for Biomimetic Soft Robotics , 2015 .

[4]  D. Wiersma,et al.  Structured light enables biomimetic swimming and versatile locomotion of photoresponsive soft microrobots. , 2016, Nature materials.

[5]  Hans-Jürgen Butt,et al.  Photon Upconversion Lithography: Patterning of Biomaterials Using Near‐Infrared Light , 2015, Advanced materials.

[6]  Yanlei Yu,et al.  Humidity‐ and Photo‐Induced Mechanical Actuation of Cross‐Linked Liquid Crystal Polymers , 2017, Advanced materials.

[7]  M. Sitti,et al.  Soft Actuators for Small‐Scale Robotics , 2017, Advanced materials.

[8]  Stanislav N. Gorb,et al.  Bio-inspired Structured Adhesives , 2017, Biologically-Inspired Systems.

[9]  D. Wiersma,et al.  Light-Fueled Microscopic Walkers , 2015, Advanced materials.

[10]  Metin Sitti,et al.  Small-scale soft-bodied robot with multimodal locomotion , 2018, Nature.

[11]  D. Goldman,et al.  Sidewinding with minimal slip: Snake and robot ascent of sandy slopes , 2014, Science.

[12]  Robert M. McMeeking,et al.  Fibrillar Elastomeric Micropatterns Create Tunable Adhesion Even to Rough Surfaces , 2016 .

[13]  Luquan Ren,et al.  Bionic intelligent hydrogel actuators with multimodal deformation and locomotion , 2018, Nano Energy.

[14]  Yu Tian,et al.  Biomimetic Bidirectional Switchable Adhesive Inspired by the Gecko , 2014 .

[15]  M. Mahmoudi,et al.  Graphene: promises, facts, opportunities, and challenges in nanomedicine. , 2013, Chemical reviews.

[16]  Hans-Jürgen Butt,et al.  Bioinspired orientation-dependent friction. , 2014, Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids.

[17]  Mark R. Cutkosky,et al.  Smooth Vertical Surface Climbing With Directional Adhesion , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Robotics.

[18]  Ulrike Wallrabe,et al.  A quick and accurate method to determine the Poisson's ratio and the coefficient of thermal expansion of PDMS. , 2019, Soft matter.

[19]  M. Cutkosky,et al.  The Gecko’s Toe: Scaling Directional Adhesives for Climbing Applications , 2013, IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics.

[20]  Di Liu,et al.  Uniformity of thermal fields in multi-heat-sources synthesis and the elongations of graphene sheets composites and polymers applied in the Bionic robots , 2018 .

[21]  G. Whitesides,et al.  Soft Actuators and Robots that Are Resistant to Mechanical Damage , 2014 .

[22]  K. Novoselov,et al.  A roadmap for graphene , 2012, Nature.

[23]  D. Rus,et al.  Design, fabrication and control of soft robots , 2015, Nature.

[24]  Angelo S. Mao,et al.  An Integrated Microrobotic Platform for On‐Demand, Targeted Therapeutic Interventions , 2014, Advanced materials.

[25]  R. Young,et al.  Mechanical properties of graphene and graphene-based nanocomposites , 2017 .

[26]  R. Full,et al.  Adhesive force of a single gecko foot-hair , 2000, Nature.

[27]  R. Yoshida,et al.  Self‐Walking Gel , 2007 .