Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China.
Beijing Key Lab of Cryo-Biomedical Engineering and Key Lab of Cryogenics, Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China.
Small. 2015 Oct 21;11(39):5253-61. doi: 10.1002/smll.201501364. Epub 2015 Aug 17.
Internally triggered motion of an object owns important potential in diverse application areas ranging from micromachines, actuator or sensor, to self-assembly of superstructures. A new conceptual liquid metal machine style has been presented here: the transient state machine that can work as either a large size robot, partial running elements, or just divide spontaneously running swarm of tiny motors. According to need, the discrete droplet machines as quickly generated through injecting the stream of a large liquid metal machine can combine back again to the original one. Over the process, each tiny machine just keeps its running, colliding, bouncing, or adhesion states until finally assembling into a single machine. Unlike the commonly encountered rigid machines, such transient state system can be reversible in working shapes. Depending on their surface tension, the autonomously traveling droplet motors can experience bouncing and colliding before undergoing total coalescence, arrested coalescence, or total bounce. This finding would help mold unconventional robot in the sense of transient state machine that could automatically transform among different geometries such as a single or swarm, small or large size, assembling and interaction, etc. It refreshes people's basic understandings on machines, liquid metal materials, fluid mechanics, and micromotors.
物体的内部触发运动在从微机械、执行器或传感器到超结构的自组装等各种应用领域具有重要的潜在应用价值。本文提出了一种新型的液态金属机器样式：瞬态状态机，可以作为大型机器人、部分运行元件工作，或者只是自发地分裂成微小电机的群体。根据需要，可以通过注入大液态金属机器的流来快速生成离散的液滴机器，然后再将它们组合回原来的状态。在这个过程中，每个微小的机器都保持其运行、碰撞、反弹或附着状态，直到最终组装成一个单一的机器。与常见的刚性机器不同，这种瞬态系统可以在工作形状上是可逆的。根据它们的表面张力，自主行驶的液滴马达在经历完全合并、阻止合并或完全反弹之前会经历反弹和碰撞。这一发现有助于塑造非常规的机器人，即瞬态机器，可以在不同的几何形状之间自动转换，如单个或群体、小或大尺寸、组装和相互作用等。它刷新了人们对机器、液态金属材料、流体力学和微马达的基本理解。
