What does the strongest climbing robot in history look like?
Drumroll, the answer is revealed—
Don’t be fooled by its small size; it has conquered almost all types of terrain!
It belongs to the family of miniature soft robots, and in addition to basic surfaces like walls, slopes, and ceilings, it can traverse cylindrical surfaces, wavy surfaces, wedge-shaped surfaces, and spherical surfaces with ease!
Climbing on a spherical surface:
Wavy surfaces with different curvatures:
It can also climb on leaves:
Moreover, it can “do a somersault” to transition between two different surfaces:
Or turn while crawling:
Even more impressive, its body can easily change lengths and carry a camera, with a length ranging from 6 mm to 90 mm and a weight from 0.2 grams to 3 grams.
This “climbing champion” in the robotics field comes from Professor Zhang Yihui’s research group at Tsinghua University’s School of Aerospace Engineering, and the related research results were recently published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) under the title “A Miniature Soft Robot Capable of Climbing and Transitioning on Complex Surfaces Based on a Deformable 3D Actuator”.
▍Electrically Driven Smart Materials, Actively Adapting to Different Surfaces
So how does this seemingly plain soft robot acquire its climbing skills?
The secret lies in its deformable body and foot pads, as well as the smart joints connecting the two.
They are all made from liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs). This is a type of smart material that undergoes macroscopic deformation under external stimuli such as heat, light, electricity, magnetism, pH, and humidity, and returns to its original state once the external stimulus is removed.
By combining multilayer laser-induced graphene (LIG) for electrical heating, the actuator can achieve 3D shape deformation at the millimeter scale (from 1 mm to 10 mm) with a bending angle greater than 200°, which was previously unattainable by soft robots.
The robot’s foot pads also feature an additional electro-adhesive layer that provides the necessary adhesion for climbing movements while actively deforming to better adapt to different surface shapes.
The robot’s “ankles” are the “smart joints” connecting the body and foot pads, and by controlling the variable stiffness of these “smart joints”, the robot can switch between three movement gaits: stepping, somersaulting, and transitioning.
Curvature-guided 3D assembly makes the manufacturing of the robot more flexible! It can produce robots of different sizes (from 6 to 90 mm) and weights (from 0.2 to 3 grams).
In addition to size and weight, robots made using the LIG-LCE principle can also have more climbing methods:
▍Future Applications in Complex Environments
The researchers were inspired by the hydra, a type of plankton, to develop this soft robot.
With this new skill unlocked, the soft robot can enter narrow and complex environments to perform tasks such as detection, replacing humans. For example, in complex systems like aircraft engines and refineries, this robot can navigate through various pipes, gears, and curved structures to reach designated locations for fault detection and other tasks.
Professor Zhang Yihui from Tsinghua University is the corresponding author of this article, with postdoctoral researcher Pang Wenbo and PhD student Xu Shiwei from the 2020 cohort as co-first authors. Other authors include Professor Wen Li and Associate Professor Xue Zhaoguo from Beihang University, as well as Tsinghua University PhD students Wu Jun (2018 cohort), Jin Tiankui (2019 cohort), Liu Zhi (2018 cohort), Cheng Xu (2017 cohort), and postdoctoral researchers Bai Renheng, Xiao Yue, Zhang Fan, Bai Ke, and Song Honglie.
This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China’s Original Exploration Program, the Foundation’s Innovative Research Group, the Science Exploration Award, the Ho Ying-dong Young Teacher Fund, and the Tsinghua University Guoqiang Research Institute Fund.
Paper link:www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2215028119
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