Meet the Future of Soft Robots 🤖Compact, Smart & Untethered!

Описание: Meet the future of soft robotics! 🤖 Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed next-generation soft actuators that are compact, portable, and electrically powered — eliminating the need for bulky pumps and air systems.

These actuators are built from liquid crystal elastomers, materials that behave like artificial muscles. By embedding heating wires inside flexible polymer tubes, researchers created actuators that can bend in six directions or contract like real muscles when stimulated by electricity.

As a proof of concept, the team built two incredible robots:

A battery-powered walking soft robot that moves untethered on flat surfaces 🚶‍♂️

A soft gripper that can grab and lift small objects ✋


Each robot runs on a small battery with an onboard microcontroller, allowing fully independent movement. This breakthrough shows how compact, multifunctional, and low-cost soft robots can revolutionize robotics, healthcare, and wearable devices.

📄 Paper: Electrically controlled liquid crystal elastomer–based soft tubular actuator with multimodal actuation
👨‍🔬 Authors: Shengqiang Cai, Qiguang He, et al.
📕 Journal: Science Advances (2019)
🔗 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aax5746
🏛️ Provided by: University of California – San Diego

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