What is it about?

Microorganisms move by periodic changes in body shape, whereas current artificial microrobots cannot actively deform. Here, we show that soft microrobots consisting of liquid-crystal elastomers can be driven by structured light to perform sophisticated biomimetic motions and multiple gaits. The continuum yet selectively-addressable soft microrobots generate travelling-wave motions to self-propel without external forces or torques. The principle of using structured light can be extended to other applications that require microscale actuation with sophisticated spatiotemporal coordination for advanced microrobotic technologies.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

For the first time, a mobile microrobot (<1 mm) is realized that effectively contains many, independently controllable actuators. This allows the motion of the microrobot to be changed at will, flexibly adapting it to the specific environment.

Perspectives

These results were achieved by applying the paradigm of soft robotics to micro-scale robots. The microrobots consist of a soft, continuum artificial muscle, which makes the fabrication easy and allows for further miniaturization. By selectively activating it by light, we could achieve many different motions at will. No one had ever achieved such a sophisticated control on a microrobot motion.

Stefano Palagi
Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Structured light enables biomimetic swimming and versatile locomotion of photoresponsive soft microrobots, Nature Materials, February 2016, Nature,
DOI: 10.1038/nmat4569.
You can read the full text:

Read

Resources

Contributors

The following have contributed to this page