A soft microrobot with highly deformable 3D actuators for climbing and transitioning complex surfaces.

ABSTRACT: The climbing microrobots have attracted growing attention due to their promising applications in exploration and monitoring of complex, unstructured environments. Soft climbing microrobots based on muscle-like actuators could offer excellent flexibility, adaptability, and mechanical robustness. Despite the remarkable progress in this area, the development of soft microrobots capable of climbing on flat/curved surfaces and transitioning between two different surfaces remains elusive, especially in open spaces. In this study, we address these challenges by developing voltage-driven soft small-scale actuators with customized 3D configurations and active stiffness adjusting. Combination of programmed strain distributions in liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) and buckling-driven 3D assembly, guid

SUBMITTER: Pang W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9894190 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature