Self‐Sensing Robotic Structures from Architectured Particle Assemblies

Abstract

The tight coupling of shape transformation, stiffness tuning, and self‐sensing that biological organisms exhibit has long served as inspiration for next‐generation soft robots. However, most current soft robots rely on intrinsically soft materials for actuation, separately embedded sensors for sensing, and have fixed stiffness once fabricated. Large gaps remain between these soft robots and biological organisms where multifunctionality is realized within an integrated body. Herein, a new class of robotic structures from architectured particle assemblies is introduced. They combine three functions: shape changing, stiffness variation, and self‐sensing into one monolithic structure. Unlike traditional entirely soft robots, the design utilizes the geometric contacts of stiff, architectured particles under confining pressure to achieve these functions. The applications of these structures by designing smart self‐sensing architectures and soft grippers are demonstrated. The design provides a new paradigm of multifunctional robotic structures, with potential multiscale applications in adaptive robots, smart devices, and reconfigurable architectures.

Development of Self-Sensing Asphalt Pavements: Review and Perspectives

“…The use of smart self-sensing materials is rapidly growing in many different fields, including medical device manufacturing [118], robotics [119], tissue engineering [120], the automotive industry, and aeronautic structure design [121]. One of the primary advantages of these applications is the relatively easy integration of different sensors thanks to the small dimensions of the host materials.…”

Morphing matter: from mechanical principles to robotic applications

“…To approximate a targeted free-form surface, a computational method is proposed to tessellate the given surface into rigid convex blocks in regular topologies [117] [Figure 4A]. In this method, a 2D polygonal tessellation is mapped to the targeted 3D surfaces, and the mapped edges are augmented with normalized vectors for constructing 3D planes.…”

“…In addition to the well-established morphing materials/structures involving programming localized strain or cuts/folds [4,123] , there has been another innovative method recently developed -the assembly of discrete elements (e.g., architectured particles) from basic building blocks [31,117,118,121,122,124] . The discrete characteristics grant the building blocks more freedom of movement, enabling easy changes in Gaussian curvature [17,112] .…”

“…The discrete characteristics grant the building blocks more freedom of movement, enabling easy changes in Gaussian curvature [17,112] . Recent developments have used architectured blocks [117] , rotating beams [125,126] , and curved ribbons [127] as the basic building elements. Through designing the geometries of the discrete building elements and their interactions (e.g., assembling, sliding, rotating, etc.…”

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