Solar‐Driven Soft Robots
Name
advs.202004235.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
2.97 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
65d06ea6334e05f29d43bc2ca72aff24
Author(s)
Mirvakili, Seyed Mohammad
Leroy, Arny
Sim, Douglas
Wang, Evelyn
Date Issued
February 2021
Journal
Advanced Science
Publisher
Wiley
Citation
Mirvakili, Seyed M. "Solar‐Driven Soft Robots." Forthcoming in Advanced Science: 2004235. © 2021 The Authors
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Advanced Science published by Wiley-VCH GmbH Stimuli-responsive materials have been lately employed in soft robotics enabling new classes of robots that can emulate biological systems. The untethered operation of soft materials with high power light, magnetic field, and electric field has been previously demonstrated. While electric and magnetic fields can be stimulants for untethered actuation, their rapid decay as a function of distance limits their efficacy for long-range operations. In contrast, light—in the form of sunlight or collimated from an artificial source (e.g., laser, Xenon lamps)—does not decay rapidly, making it suitable for long-range excitation of untethered soft robots. In this work, an approach to harnessing sunlight for the untethered operation of soft robots is presented. By employing a selective solar absorber film and a low-boiling point (34 °C) fluid, light-operated soft robotic grippers are demonstrated, grasping and lifting objects almost 25 times the mass of the fluid in a controllable fashion. The method addresses one of the salient challenges in the field of untethered soft robotics. It precludes the use of bulky peripheral components (e.g., compressors, valves, or pressurized gas tank) and enables the untethered long-range operation of soft robots.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202004235
