To maximize their potential, soft robotic devices cannot consist solely of rigid electronic components encased in squishy rubber. New materials that are soft, self-healing and electrically conductive could help in that regard.
Developed by a team of scientists at Carnegie Mellon University, the substance consists of a gelatinous polyvinyl alcohol-sodium borate base embedded with silver microflakes and gallium-based liquid metal droplets. It is also infused with ethylene glycol to prevent drying.
Not only is this material perfectly capable of conducting powerful electrical currents, but it can be stretched up to 400% of its relaxed length without breaking. Additionally, if a piece of material is sliced in two, it can be mechanically and electrically repaired back into one.
In the gel test, strips of gel were used to connect the battery to the motor along the outside of a soft-bodied robotic snail. Once that strip was fully sliced (with her two severed ends still in contact with each other), the snail’s speed he slowed by more than 50%. When the ends were repaired together, the speed increased to 68% of the original speed.
Another test initially used two strips of gel to relay current to a toy car motor. The scientist cut a section from the middle of both strips, joined the cut ends of the strips together to restore power to the motor, and extracted it. supplied power.
Finally, small pieces of material were used in place of conventional rigid electrodes to obtain electromyographic (EMG) readings from various locations on the volunteer’s body.
“Instead of being wired with biomonitoring electrodes that connect to cart-mounted biomeasurement hardware, our gels act as bioelectrodes that interface directly with body-mounted electronics that can collect and wirelessly transmit information. You can use it,” said the lead scientist. Professor Carmel Majidi.
The possibilities don’t stop there…
“It’s interesting to see soft-bodied robots being used to monitor hard-to-reach places, such as snails that can monitor water quality and slugs that crawl around the house looking for mold,” he added. rice field.
A paper on this study was recently published in the journal nature electronicsThe functionality of this material is demonstrated in the video below.
Engineering Breakthroughs in Softbotics
Source: Carnegie Mellon University
