Butterfly proboscis-inspired tight rolling tapered soft actuators

Abstract

Tight bending bio-inspired soft actuators were fashioned in liquid crystalline networks by using a novel tapered film geometry.

Direct Ink Writing of a Light‐Responsive Underwater Liquid Crystal Actuator with Atypical Temperature‐Dependent Shape Changes

“…Untethered liquid crystalline (LC) actuators are of increasing interest in many applications including microfluidics, biomedical engineering, and soft robotics. [1] Typically, these actuators respond to external stimuli such as temperature, [2][3][4][5] humidity, [6,7] light, [8][9][10][11] or magnetic fields. [12,13] Among them, light is a versatile and promising platform to control the…”

A self-sustained soft actuator able to rock and roll

“…The versatility of LCNs has allowed for the development of soft actuators capable of bending, [12][13][14] rolling, 15 'walking' [16][17][18] and helical twisting in a dry environment. 19,20 Over the past few decades light, [21][22][23] heat 12 and humidity 24 have been used as the main triggers.…”

A Soft Transporter Robot Fueled by Light

“…Liquid crystalline networks (LCNs) have been successfully employed to remotely and wirelessly achieve controlled bending, [16,17] rolling, [18] twisting, [19,20] and oscillating motions, [21][22][23] appearing as promising candidates for the mobile components in untethered soft robots in dry environments. [24] Light response is popularly employed in LCNbased soft robots and is achieved through the inclusion of photo active molecules into the polymer network in which the molecular architectures dictate the nature of the movement.…”