Wireless soft millirobots for climbing three-dimensional surfaces in confined spaces.

ABSTRACT: Wireless soft-bodied robots at the millimeter scale allow traversing very confined unstructured terrains with minimal invasion and safely interacting with the surrounding environment. However, existing untethered soft millirobots still lack the ability of climbing, reversible controlled surface adhesion, and long-term retention on unstructured three-dimensional (3D) surfaces, limiting their use in biomedical and environmental applications. Here, we report a fundamental peeling-and-loading mechanism to allow untethered soft-bodied robots to climb 3D surfaces by using both the soft-body deformation and whole-body motion of the robot under external magnetic fields. This generic mechanism is implemented with different adhesive robot footpad designs, allowing vertical and inverted surface climb

SUBMITTER: Wu Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9140972 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature