The Dynamic Mortise-and-Tenon Interlock Assists Hydrated Soft Robots Toward Off-Road Locomotion.

ABSTRACT: Natural locomotion such as walking, crawling, and swimming relies on spatially controlled deformation of soft tissues, which could allow efficient interaction with the external environment. As one of the ideal candidates for biomimetic materials, hydrogels can exhibit versatile bionic morphings. However, it remains an enormous challenge to transfer these in situ deformations to locomotion, particularly above complex terrains. Herein, inspired by the crawling mode of inchworms, an isotropic hydrogel with thermoresponsiveness could evolve to an anisotropic hydrogel actuator via interfacial diffusion polymerization, further evolving to multisection structure and exhibiting adaptive deformation with diverse degrees of freedom. Therefore, a dynamic mortise-and-tenon interlock could be generated

SUBMITTER: Wu B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11407522 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature