Temperature-triggered inflatable hydrogel muscles with snap-through instability for untethered robots.

ABSTRACT: Pneumatic artificial muscles have been widely used in the field of robotics because of their large output force and fast actuation, however, the accompanying bulky compressors and pumps limit their miniaturized applications. Despite current untethered pneumatic artificial muscles can be driven by adjusting the internal pressure, it is challenging to structurally mimic natural muscles with high water content. Here, we propose untethered pneumatic artificial muscles comprising a hydrogel actuator with snap-through instability and an air storage chamber. These hydrogel actuators can realize the conversion from hydrophobic association of octyl acrylate moieties to host-guest interaction between β-cyclodextrin and octyl acrylate under thermal stimuli, leading to the decrease of their moduli. Th

SUBMITTER: Cui Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11982279 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature