Physical Intelligence Department, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany.
Nature. 2018 Feb 1;554(7690):81-85. doi: 10.1038/nature25443. Epub 2018 Jan 24.
Untethered small-scale (from several millimetres down to a few micrometres in all dimensions) robots that can non-invasively access confined, enclosed spaces may enable applications in microfactories such as the construction of tissue scaffolds by robotic assembly, in bioengineering such as single-cell manipulation and biosensing, and in healthcare such as targeted drug delivery and minimally invasive surgery. Existing small-scale robots, however, have very limited mobility because they are unable to negotiate obstacles and changes in texture or material in unstructured environments. Of these small-scale robots, soft robots have greater potential to realize high mobility via multimodal locomotion, because such machines have higher degrees of freedom than their rigid counterparts. Here we demonstrate magneto-elastic soft millimetre-scale robots that can swim inside and on the surface of liquids, climb liquid menisci, roll and walk on solid surfaces, jump over obstacles, and crawl within narrow tunnels. These robots can transit reversibly between different liquid and solid terrains, as well as switch between locomotive modes. They can additionally execute pick-and-place and cargo-release tasks. We also present theoretical models to explain how the robots move. Like the large-scale robots that can be used to study locomotion, these soft small-scale robots could be used to study soft-bodied locomotion produced by small organisms.
无束缚的小型(尺寸从几毫米到几微米不等)机器人可以非侵入式地进入受限、封闭的空间,这可能使它们在微工厂中的应用成为可能,例如通过机器人组装构建组织支架、在单细胞操作和生物传感等生物工程领域以及在靶向药物输送和微创手术等医疗保健领域。然而,现有的小型机器人由于无法在非结构化环境中应对障碍物和质地或材料的变化,其移动能力非常有限。在这些小型机器人中,软机器人通过多模态运动具有更大的实现高机动性的潜力,因为这些机器比刚性机器人具有更高的自由度。在这里,我们展示了可以在液体内部和表面游动、攀爬液体弯月面、在固体表面滚动和行走、跳过障碍物以及在狭窄隧道内爬行的磁弹性软毫米级机器人。这些机器人可以在不同的液体和固体地形之间可逆地转换,并且可以在运动模式之间切换。它们还可以执行取放和货物释放任务。我们还提出了理论模型来解释机器人是如何移动的。像可以用于研究运动的大型机器人一样,这些软小型机器人可以用于研究由小型生物产生的软体动物的运动。