Laser-assisted failure recovery for dielectric elastomer actuators in aerial robots

Abstract

Insects maintain remarkable agility after incurring severe injuries or wounds. Although robots driven by rigid actuators have demonstrated agile locomotion and manipulation, most of them lack animal-like robustness against unexpected damage. Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are a class of muscle-like soft transducers that have enabled nimble aerial, terrestrial, and aquatic robotic locomotion comparable to that of rigid actuators. However, unlike muscles, DEAs suffer local dielectric breakdowns that often cause global device failure. These local defects severely limit DEA performance, lifetime, and size scalability. We developed DEAs that can endure more than 100 punctures while maintaining high bandwidth (>400 hertz) and power density (>700 watt per kilogram)—sufficient for supporting energetically expensive locomotion such as flight. We fabricated electroluminescent DEAs for visualizing electrode connectivity under actuator damage. When the DEA suffered severe dielectric breakdowns that caused device failure, we demonstrated a laser-assisted repair method for isolating the critical defects and recovering performance. These results culminate in an aerial robot that can endure critical actuator and wing damage while maintaining similar accuracy in hovering flight. Our work highlights that soft robotic systems can embody animal-like agility and resilience—a critical biomimetic capability for future robots to interact with challenging environments.

Bioinspired Flexible Capacitive Sensor for Robot Positioning in Unstructured Environments

“…Furthermore, considering time parameters, it is possible to perceive the relative velocity changes between the object and the sensor. This simple but significant sensing function has broad application prospects in reality, such as helping continuum robots navigate in narrow spaces, robotic grippers that we developed earlier to recognize the speed and spatial position of high-speed moving objects, micro aerial robots to avoid collisions, , and so on (Figure F).…”

Viscoelastic materials are most energy efficient when loaded and unloaded at equal rates

“…The breadth of a material’s viscoelastic relaxation spectrum is a key factor that determines the extent to which it will exhibit a drop in efficiency in response to asymmetric loading and unloading rates. Given the generality of our approach, we expect these results to apply to a variety of materials used in elastically driven movements in biology such as resilin-rich cuticle in locusts [15] or chitinous exoskeleton used by mantis shrimp [18] as well as the actuation of soft elastomers in recent robotics applications [43,44].…”

叠层式介电弹性体人工肌肉驱动器: 设计、制备与柔性驱动应用

“…中国科学: 物理学 力学 天文学 2024 年 第 54 卷 第 6 期 264503-22 最高能量密度和功率密度分别达到了1.13 J/kg和 563 W/kg, 远超过扑翼机器人克服重力所需要的 200 W/kg的功率密度. 得益于MDEA的自清洁电极, 这种机器人具有损伤后可激光修复的特征 [121] . 此外, 近年来采用MDEA驱动各种新颖的软体机器人也层出 不穷, 包括在管道内爬行的机器人 [122] (图12(i)), 具有变 色功能的机器人 [123] (图12(j))等.…”