Hydraulic hydrogel actuators and robots optically and sonically camouflaged in water
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Hydraulic hydrogel.pdf
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2.33 MB
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Author(s)
Yuk, Hyunwoo
Lin, Shaoting
Ma, Chu
Takaffoli, Mahdi
Fang, Xuanlai
Zhao, Xuanhe
Date Issued
February 2017
Journal
Nature Communications
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Citation
Yuk, Hyunwoo; Lin, Shaoting; Ma, Chu; Takaffoli, Mahdi; Fang, Nicolas X. and Zhao, Xuanhe. “Hydraulic Hydrogel Actuators and Robots Optically and Sonically Camouflaged in Water.” Nature Communications 8 (February 2017): 14230 © 2017 The Author(s)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Sea animals such as leptocephali develop tissues and organs composed of active transparent hydrogels to achieve agile motions and natural camouflage in water. Hydrogel-based actuators that can imitate the capabilities of leptocephali will enable new applications in diverse fields. However, existing hydrogel actuators, mostly osmotic-driven, are intrinsically low-speed and/or low-force; and their camouflage capabilities have not been explored. Here we show that hydraulic actuations of hydrogels with designed structures and properties can give soft actuators and robots that are high-speed, high-force, and optically and sonically camouflaged in water. The hydrogel actuators and robots can maintain their robustness and functionality over multiple cycles of actuations, owing to the anti-fatigue property of the hydrogel under moderate stresses. We further demonstrate that the agile and transparent hydrogel actuators and robots perform extraordinary functions including swimming, kicking rubber-balls and even catching a live fish in water.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms14230
