Review
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Mahdi Ilami, Hosain Bagheri, Reza Ahmed, E. Olga Skowronek, Hamid Marvi
Summary: Biological systems inspire advancements in soft robotics, leading to the development of bioinspired soft actuators and sensors; this review surveys the progress in these fields between 2017 and 2020, focusing on the materials used in their design.
ADVANCED MATERIALS
(2021)
Review
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Alexander L. Evenchik, Alexander Q. Kane, Eunbi Oh, Ryan L. Truby
Summary: Soft robotics aims to bridge the performance gap between artificial and biological machines by using soft, actuable materials. The materials selection often involves low-performance and energy-inefficient stimuli-responsive materials, limiting the practical utility of soft robots. This review focuses on the development of electroprogrammable materials for soft robot actuation, emphasizing thermomechanical, electrostatic, and electrochemical actuation strategies. The outlook includes the design and fabrication of next-generation robotic materials for true bioinspired autonomy.
ANNUAL REVIEW OF MATERIALS RESEARCH
(2023)
Review
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Shuzhen Wei, Tushar K. Ghosh
Summary: The motion behaviors of biological organisms inspire the design of better-engineered products. Compared to biological actuators, manmade counterparts have limited capabilities. With the increasing demand for soft robotics and human-machine interfaces, there is a need for soft actuators with improved capabilities. Biological actuators provide critical insights to advance the science and technology of artificial soft actuators.
ADVANCED MATERIALS TECHNOLOGIES
(2022)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Pingan Zhu, Rifei Chen, Chunmei Zhou, Michael Aizenberg, Joanna Aizenberg, Liqiu Wang
Summary: The study introduces a new type of soft actuators by leveraging concepts found in the dermis of sea cucumbers and the tendrils of climbing plants, as well as microfluidic fabrication. These microactuators demonstrate high property contrast ratios between hydrated and dehydrated states (20-850), with high energy density and actuation stress, and a weight-lifting ratio 2-3 orders of magnitude higher than recent hygroscopic actuators.
ADVANCED MATERIALS
(2021)
Review
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Zhiyong Wang, Cristian Valenzuela, Jianhua Wu, Yuanhao Chen, Ling Wang, Wei Feng
Summary: This comprehensive overview provides insights into the recent advancements in freeze-tolerant soft materials and their emerging applications. The article introduces the mechanisms underlying the freeze tolerance of biological organisms and summarizes the engineering strategies for developing antifreezing soft materials. It also presents the recent advances in freeze-tolerant soft materials for various technological applications.
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Mengyuan Yang, Yiyi Xu, Xuan Zhang, Hari Krishna Bisoyi, Pan Xue, Yanzhao Yang, Xiao Yang, Cristian Valenzuela, Yuanhao Chen, Ling Wang, Wei Feng, Quan Li
Summary: This article reports on a bioinspired phototropic MXene-reinforced soft tubular actuator that has omnidirectional self-orienting ability and can interact with incident light in all zenithal and azimuthal angles. The innovation of this actuator lies in its optimized materials and structure, which enable fast photoresponse and high light-tracking accuracy. A proof-of-concept demonstration of its application potential in solar energy harvesting is provided.
ADVANCED FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS
(2022)
Article
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Dengfeng Li, Song Wang, Jiahui He, Hao Zeng, Kuanming Yao, Zhan Gao, Mengge Wu, Yiming Liu, Lidai Wang, Zhaoqian Xie, Xinge Yu
Summary: Research in bioinspired materials and devices has shown potential for future intelligent robots. Biomimetic soft actuators, like ultrathin actuators in this study, offer precise and flexible operation for soft robots, mimicking functionalities of animals or plants.
ADVANCED MATERIALS TECHNOLOGIES
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Applied
Yangdaiyi Zhang, Tongtong Zheng, Shimei Jiang
Summary: In this study, a smart fluorescent hydrogel was constructed that exhibited synergistic shape, color, fluorescence, and transparency responses to a single acid stimulus. This provides new insights for the design of biomimetic systems.
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Mengxin Yang, Jing Wu, Wenjie Jiang, Xiaorui Hu, Mohammad Irfan Iqbal, Fengxin Sun
Summary: This paper presents a caterpillar-inspired actuator using hierarchical textile architectures to address the limitations of existing soft pneumatic actuators. The actuator exhibits fast response, large bending actuation strain, high-power density, mechanical robustness, easy-programmable motions, and human-tactile comfort. It offers new insights for developing soft actuators with outstanding design flexibility, adaptability, and multifunctionality using engineered textile-structures, which has great potential for real-world applications in medical rehabilitation, physiotherapy, and soft robotics.
ADVANCED FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS
(2023)
Article
Robotics
Silvia Filogna, Linda Paterno, Fabrizio Vecchi, Luigi Musco, Veronica Iacovacci, Arianna Menciassi
Summary: This study proposes a soft linear fluidic actuator based on the working principle of a marine worm, which has attracted attention in bioinspired soft robotics. By combining an inflated soft pneumatic chamber with a stretchable hydraulic chamber, a novel fluidic transmission mechanism is achieved, enabling the actuator to have stretchability and output forces. This bioinspired actuator expands the design of fluidic actuators and has the potential for applications in the medical field.
Article
Robotics
Zhuang Zhang, Genliang Chen, Yuanhao Xun, Yongzhou Long, Jue Wang, Hao Wang, Jorge Angeles
Summary: In this article, the authors introduce an enhanced design of soft pneumatic actuators through the integration of a tendon-driven parallel mechanism. The actuator demonstrates versatile motion, tunable stiffness, and load-carrying maneuvers. Experimental validation confirms the effectiveness of the model.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Daofan Tang, Chengqian Zhang, Haonan Sun, Huangzhe Dai, Jun Xie, Jianzhong Fu, Peng Zhao
Summary: This paper introduces a method that integrates ancient origami craft and magnetic-driven materials, converting external magnetic energy into inner elastic energy, broadening the design and function of magnetic-driven actuators. Programming magnetic moment directions and adjusting deformation amplitudes through origami method lay the foundation for designing complex three-dimensional magnetic-driven actuators.
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Yanlin Cao, Xianke Feng, Shuang Wang, Qi Li, Xiying Li, Hongyuan Li, Wei Hong, Huiling Duan, Pengyu Lv
Summary: This article reports a novel soft actuator fabricated by 3D printing parallel strips on a thin film. Multiple configuration transitions were observed when the actuator swells, and the mechanisms were investigated and verified through experiments, analysis, and simulation. This work contributes to the fundamental understanding and innovative design of soft actuators.
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Yu-Qing Liu, Zhao-Di Chen, Dong-Dong Han, Jiang-Wei Mao, Jia-Nan Ma, Yong-Lai Zhang, Hong-Bo Sun
Summary: Graphene oxide (GO) with oxygen functional groups is a promising material for moisture-responsive sensors and actuators due to strong water-GO interaction and fast water molecule transport. GO-based moisture-responsive actuators have advantages over others in the past 5 years, leading to the successful development of moisture-enabled soft robots inspired by nature organisms. These soft robots are at the forefront of automatable smart devices.
Article
Robotics
Xinbo Chen, Jiantao Yao, Shuai Zhang, Kunming Zhu, Shuaiqi Kong, Shupeng Qi, Xuanhao Zhang
Summary: This article introduces a bioinspired cobweb soft gripper named WebGripper, which takes inspiration from spiders' predation behavior and exhibits stable and reliable grasping capability. The gripper mimics a spider web's structure before grasping an object, and then entangles the object like a snake after grasping. The WebGripper shows versatile adaptability and enhanced grasping stability, making it suitable for a wide range of applications such as goods sorting, fruit picking, and underwater fishing.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Shuangshuang Wu, Huihui Shi, Wei Lu, Shuxin Wei, Hui Shang, Hao Liu, Muqing Si, Xiaoxia Le, Guangqiang Yin, Patrick Theato, Tao Chen
Summary: The study proposes the use of hydrophobic carbon dots to construct an aggregation-induced emission active glycol CDs polymer gel, which can be used for anisotropic bilayer soft actuators that undergo shape and color changes on water surfaces, leading to autonomous locomotion.
ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE-INTERNATIONAL EDITION
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Hao Liu, Shuxin Wei, Huiyu Qiu, Muqing Si, Guoqing Lin, Zhenkuang Lei, Wei Lu, Lei Zhou, Tao Chen
Summary: Many living creatures have evolved to exhibit diverse appearance color changes in response to various environmental stimuli. Constructing artificial soft polymer hydrogels with similar multi-responsive multicolor tunable behaviors is challenging, but can enhance the function of certain machines. A novel class of supramolecular fluorescent polymeric hydrogels with wide multi-color tunability, multi-responsiveness, self-healing, and remolding capacities has been proposed, which can be used to create soft biomimetic color-changing skins for robots.
ADVANCED FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS
(2022)
Article
Engineering, Environmental
Hui Shang, Xiaoxia Le, Muqing Si, Shuangshuang Wu, Yu Peng, Fuqing Shan, Si Wu, Tao Chen
Summary: This study presents an organohydrogel actuator with simultaneous shape and fluorescence color variation capability, offering insights for designing and fabricating novel soft robots.
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL
(2022)
Article
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Guoqing Lin, Muqing Si, Longgang Wang, Shuxin Wei, Wei Lu, Hao Liu, Yi Zhang, Danyang Li, Tao Chen
Summary: Flexible strain sensors are important for various applications, and a dual-channel sensing system that can provide both strain-dependent electronic and visually optical signal responses is of interest. Researchers have developed mechanofluorescent and conductive hydrogel laminates inspired by squid skin color changes, which can be used for real-time human motion monitoring.
ADVANCED OPTICAL MATERIALS
(2022)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Guangqiang Yin, Jianxiang Huang, Depeng Liu, Rui Li, Shuxin Wei, Muqing Si, Feng Ni, Yinfei Zheng, Qiu Yang, Ruhong Zhou, Xiaoxia Le, Wei Lu, Tao Chen
Summary: As a burgeoning research field, ultrasound-responsive materials have attracted intense interest in health-care research. In this study, mechanochemical transformations of europium(III) complexes in a supramolecular hydrogel matrix were demonstrated. The hydrogel showed a noticeable fluorescence change in response to ultrasound, and the mechanochemical transformation was elucidated by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and fully probed and evidenced by electrochemical experiments, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy.
CHINESE CHEMICAL LETTERS
(2023)
Article
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Hui Shang, Xiaoxia Le, Yu Sun, Fuqing Shan, Shuangshuang Wu, Yinfei Zheng, Danyang Li, Dong Guo, Qingquan Liu, Tao Chen
Summary: Counterfeiting information is a serious global problem, and using organic hydrogels for information security protection is of great significance.
ADVANCED OPTICAL MATERIALS
(2022)
Review
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Wei Lu, Muqing Si, Xiaoxia Le, Tao Chen
Summary: Fluorescent polymer hydrogels (FPHs) have attracted significant interest due to their potential applications in visualized sensing, smart display, and soft actuators/robots. By learning from chameleons and cephalopods, researchers have made significant advances in preparing FPHs with multicolor tunability and multifunctional synergy. These FPHs have a wide range of applications and can be used in bioinspired actuators/robots, smart systems with fluorescent patterning capacities, and robust chemosensors.
ACCOUNTS OF CHEMICAL RESEARCH
(2022)
Article
Engineering, Environmental
Shuhui An, Xiaoyi Zhang, Muqing Si, Huihui Shi, Peng Wei, Jianwei Shen, Wei Lu, Tao Chen
Summary: In this study, red-to-NIR luminescent polymeric gels based on supramolecular co-assemblies of cationic terpyridine platinum (II) luminogen and anionic alginate were reported. The large red-shifted emission and good preservation of luminescence after incorporation into crosslinked poly(vinyl alcohol) networks were observed. These organohydrogels exhibited high stress-bearing capacity, pH-responsive emission, self-healing and remolding abilities, as well as biocompatibility.
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Shuangshuang Wu, Huihui Shi, Shuxin Wei, Hui Shang, Weiping Xie, Xipao Chen, Wei Lu, Tao Chen
Summary: This study presents an ideal rewritable system inspired by the bioelectricity-triggered skin pattern switching in cephalopods. It consists of a conductive graphene film and carbon dots gel that undergo blue-to-red fluorescence-color changes through water-triggered aggregation and re-dispersion of carbon dots. The rewritability is achieved by using water ink to write on the carbon dots gel and utilizing the Joule heat of the graphene film to evaporate water. With highly controlled electrical stimulus, temporally/spatially controlled display is achieved, enabling on-demand delivery and regulation of the written information's duration time. Furthermore, a new-concept environment-interactive rewritable system is obtained by integrating sensitive acoustic/optical sensors and multichannel electronic time-delay devices. This work opens unprecedented avenues for rewritable systems and expands potential uses for information encryption/delivery.
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Wei Lu, Ruijia Wang, Muqing Si, Yi Zhang, Shuangshuang Wu, Ning Zhu, Wenqin Wang, Tao Chen
Summary: In this study, robust fluorescent polymeric hydrogel actuators with spatially anisotropic structures were constructed using an interfacial supramolecular assembly (ISA) approach, enabling control over synergistic shape/color-changing behaviors. The proposed ISA approach is universal and expected to open new avenues for developing bioinspired intelligent soft actuators/robotics with selective spatial shape/color-changing behaviors.
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Wei Lu, Muqing Si, Hao Liu, Huiyu Qiu, Shuxin Wei, Baoyi Wu, Ruijia Wang, Guangqiang Yin, Jiawei Zhang, Patrick Theato, Yen Wei, Tao Chen
Summary: Inspired by the core@shell structure in panther chameleons, a responsive multi-luminogen supramolecular hydrogel system was designed to achieve programmable multi-color fluorescent changes. Independent control over different luminogens enables easy adjustment of emission color, covering the full visible spectrum. Potential applications of this system include anti-counterfeiting materials.
CELL REPORTS PHYSICAL SCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Muqing Si, Huihui Shi, Hao Liu, Hui Shang, Guangqiang Yin, Shuxin Wei, Shuangshuang Wu, Wei Lu, Tao Chen
Summary: Many natural organisms have evolved to display responsive biofluorescence color changes for various purposes, inspiring the development of artificial fluorescence-color changeable materials. Replicating the dynamic fluorescence color camouflage capacities of living organisms using soft synthetic materials is challenging, but such systems can enhance the function of machines like robots or prosthetics. The reported supramolecular fluorescent soft material with multi-color tunability and self-healing features has potential applications in soft biomimetic camouflage and display skins for machines, offering new possibilities for powerful fluorescent materials.
MATERIALS CHEMISTRY FRONTIERS
(2021)
