Justus Kyle B, Hellebrekers Tess, Lewis Daniel D, Wood Adam, Ingham Christian, Majidi Carmel, LeDuc Philip R, Tan Cheemeng
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.
Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.
Sci Robot. 2019 Jun 26;4(31). doi: 10.1126/scirobotics.aax0765.
The integration of synthetic biology and soft robotics can fundamentally advance sensory, diagnostic, and therapeutic functionality of bioinspired machines. However, such integration is currently impeded by the lack of soft-matter architectures that interface synthetic cells with electronics and actuators for controlled stimulation and response during robotic operation. Here, we synthesized a soft gripper that uses engineered bacteria for detecting chemicals in the environment, a flexible light-emitting diode (LED) circuit for converting biological to electronic signals, and soft pneu-net actuators for converting the electronic signals to movement of the gripper. We show that the hybrid bio-LED-actuator module enabled the gripper to detect chemical signals by applying pressure and releasing the contents of a chemical-infused hydrogel. The biohybrid gripper used chemical sensing and feedback to make actionable decisions during a pick-and-place operation. This work opens previously unidentified avenues in soft materials, synthetic biology, and integrated interfacial robotic systems.
合成生物学与软体机器人技术的整合能够从根本上提升仿生机器的传感、诊断及治疗功能。然而，目前这种整合受到了缺乏软物质架构的阻碍，这种架构能够在机器人操作过程中，将合成细胞与电子器件及致动器连接起来，以实现受控刺激和响应。在此，我们合成了一种软体夹具，它利用工程细菌来检测环境中的化学物质，采用柔性发光二极管（LED）电路将生物信号转换为电信号，并使用软质气动网络致动器将电信号转换为夹具的运动。我们展示了这种生物-LED-致动器混合模块使夹具能够通过施加压力并释放注入化学物质的水凝胶内容物来检测化学信号。这种生物混合夹具在抓取和放置操作过程中利用化学传感和反馈做出可执行的决策。这项工作在软材料、合成生物学和集成界面机器人系统领域开辟了此前未被发现的途径。
