Researchers have created microscale robots less than 1 millimeter in size that are printed as a 2D hexagonal 'metasheet' but, with a jolt of electricity, morph into preprogrammed 3D shapes and crawl.
Researchers have created microscale robots less than 1 millimeter in size that are printed as a 2D hexagonal 'metasheet' but, with a jolt of electricity, morph into preprogrammed 3D shapes and crawl.
The robot's versatility is due to a novel design based on kirigami, a cousin of origami, in which slices in the material enable it to fold, expand and locomote.The paper's co-lead authors are postdoctoral researchers Qingkun Liu and Wei Wang. The project was led by Itai Cohen, professor of physics. His lab has previously produced microrobotic systems that can actuate their limbs, pump water via artificial cilia and walk autonomously.
The robot is a hexagonal tiling composed of approximately 100 silicon dioxide panels that are connected through more than 200 actuating hinges, each about 10 nanometers thin. When electrochemically activated via external wires, the hinges form mountain and valley folds and act to splay open and rotate the panels, allowing the robot to change its coverage area and locally expand and contract by up to 40%.
"Because the electronics on each individual building block can harvest energy from light, you can design a material to respond in programmed ways to various stimuli. When prodded, such materials, instead of deforming, could 'run' away, or push back with greater force than they experienced," Cohen said.
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