Department of Mechanical Engineering, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75205, United States of America.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, United States of America.
Bioinspir Biomim. 2022 Sep 12;17(6). doi: 10.1088/1748-3190/ac870f.
This paper seeks to design, develop, and explore the locomotive dynamics and morphological adaptability of a bacteria-inspired rod-like soft robot propelled in highly viscous Newtonian fluids. The soft robots were fabricated as tapered, hollow rod-like soft scaffolds by applying a robust and economic molding technique to a polyacrylamide-based hydrogel polymer. Cylindrical micro-magnets were embedded in both ends of the soft scaffolds, which allowed bending (deformation) and actuation under a uniform rotating magnetic field. We demonstrated that the tapered rod-like soft robot in viscous Newtonian fluids could perform two types of propulsion; boundary rolling was displayed when the soft robot was located near a boundary, and swimming was displayed far away from the boundary. In addition, we performed numerical simulations to understand the swimming propulsion along the rotating axis and the way in which this propulsion is affected by the soft robot's design, rotation frequency, and fluid viscosity. Our results suggest that a simple geometrical asymmetry enables the rod-like soft robot to perform propulsion in the low Reynolds number (≪ 1) regime; these promising results provide essential insights into the improvements that must be made to integrate the soft robots into minimally invasiveapplications.
本文旨在设计、开发和探索一种受细菌启发的杆状软机器人在高粘性牛顿流体中的运动动力学和形态适应性。通过对基于聚丙烯酰胺的水凝胶聚合物应用一种强大且经济的成型技术，将软机器人制造成锥形、中空的杆状软支架。在软支架的两端嵌入圆柱形微磁铁，这允许在均匀旋转磁场下进行弯曲（变形）和驱动。我们证明，在粘性牛顿流体中的锥形杆状软机器人可以执行两种类型的推进；当软机器人靠近边界时，显示边界滚动，而远离边界时，显示游泳。此外，我们进行了数值模拟，以了解沿旋转轴的游泳推进以及这种推进方式如何受到软机器人设计、旋转频率和流体粘度的影响。我们的结果表明，简单的几何不对称性使杆状软机器人能够在低雷诺数（≪1）范围内进行推进；这些有前途的结果为将软机器人集成到微创手术应用中必须进行的改进提供了重要的见解。
