Untethered Miniature Soft Robots

Covers the latest achievements in smart materials, fabrication strategies, and the multifunctional intelligent robots.

Autorentext
Li Zhang is Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering (MAE) and Professor by Courtesy in the Department of Surgery at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). He is also a director of the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)-CUHK Joint Laboratory of Robotics and Intelligent Systems. Before he joined CUHK as Assistant Professor in 2012, he worked in Prof. Bradley Nelson's group as a postdoc and then as a senior scientist and lecturer in the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Switzerland. Dr. Zhang's main research interests include small-scale robotics and their applications for translational biomedicine.
Jiachen Zhang is Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at City University of Hong Kong (CityU). Before he joined CityU in 2021, he worked in Prof. Metin Sitti?s group as a postdoc and simultaneously a Humboldt postdoc fellow in the Physical Intelligence department at Max Planck Institute of Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS), Germany. Dr. Zhang?s main research interests include magnetically controlled miniature soft-bodied robots and their biomedical applications.
Neng Xia received the B. Eng. degree from Central South University, Changsha, China, and the M. S. degree from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, in 2016 and 2019, respectively, both in mechanical engineering. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on magnetic soft robots, hydrogel materials, and 3D printing.
Yue Dong received his Ph.D. degree in 2019 from the College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering from July 2019 to the present, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include programmable actuators, soft magnetic robots, robot swarm, graphene assembly, and microfluidic.

Klappentext

Reference on achieving contactless manipulation of soft robots, detailing high level concepts and perspectives and technical skills of soft robots Untethered Miniature Soft Robots: Materials, Fabrications, and Applications introduces the emerging field of miniature soft robots and summarizes the recent rapid development in the field to date, describing different types of functional materials to build miniature soft robots, such as silicone elastomer, carbon-based materials, hydrogels, liquid crystal polymer, flexible ferrofluid, and liquid metal, and covering the material properties, fabrication strategies, and functionalities in soft robots together with their underlying mechanisms. The book discusses magnetically, thermally, optically, and chemically actuated soft robots in depth, explores the many specific applications of miniature soft robots in biomedical, environmental, and electrical fields and summarizes the development of miniature soft robots based on soft matter, fabrication strategies, locomotion principles, sensing and actuation mechanisms. In closing, the text summarizes the opportunities and challenges faced by miniature soft robots, providing expert insight into the possible futures of this field. Written by four highly qualified academics, Untethered Miniature Soft Robots covers sample topics such as:

• Soft elastomer-based robots with programmable magnetization profiles and untethered soft robots based on template-aiding
• Working mechanisms of carbon-based materials, covering light-induced expansion and shrinkage, and humidity-induced deformation
• Designing microscale building blocks, modular assembly of building blocks based on Denavit-Hartenberg (DH) matrix, and inverse and forward design of modular morphing systems
• Material designs of magnetic liquid crystal elastomers (LCE) systems, multiple-stimuli responsiveness of magnetic LCE systems, and adaptive locomotion of magnetic LCE-based robots

• Controllable deformation and motion behaviors, as well as applications of ferrofluids droplet robots (FDRs), including cargo capturing, object sorting, liquid pumping/mixing, and liquid skin. Providing highly detailed and up-to-date coverage of the topic, Untethered Miniature Soft Robots serves as an invaluable and highly comprehensive reference for researchers working in this promising field across a variety of disciplines, including materials scientists, mechanical and electronics engineers, polymer chemists, and biochemists.

  Inhalt
  Preface

  INTRODUCTION TO UNTETHERED MINIATURE SOFT ROBOTS
  Working Mechanisms of Untethered Soft Robots
  Fabrication Methods of Untethered Soft Robots
  Applications of Miniature Soft Robots
  Scope and Layout of the Book

  SILICONE ELASTOMER BASED MINIATURE SOFT ROBOTS
  Introduction
  Soft Elastomer Based Robots with Programmable Magnetization Profiles
  Reprogrammable Soft Machines
  Multi-Stimuli Responsive Transformation of Magneto-Elastomer Based Soft Structures
  Multimodal and Bioinspired Locomotion Adopted for Elastomer Based Robots
  Potential Biomedical Applications of Miniature Magnetic Soft Machines
  Fluidic Pumping by the Magneto-Elastomers
  Other Potential Applications of the Magneto-Elastomers
  Summary

  CARBON-BASED MINIATURE SOFT ROBOTS WITH ROLLED-UP CONCEPT
  Introduction
  The Choices of Carbon-Based Materials
  The Working Mechanisms of Carbon-Based Materials
  The Programming Shape Changes of Actuators and their Applications
  Summary

  HYDROGELS-BASED MINIATURE SOFT ROBOTS
  Introduction
  Fabrication of Reconfigurable Hydrogel Micromachines
  Modular Design of Reconfigurable Soft Robots based on 4D Microscale Building Blocks
  Application of Reconfigurable Soft Robots
  Summary

  LIQUID CRYSTAL NETWORK AND ELASTOMER-BASED MINIATURE SOFT ROBOTS
  Introduction
  Stimuli-Responsiveness based on Programmed Director Field
  Magnetic Liquid Elastomer Composites for Miniature Machines
  Summary

  FLEXIBLE FERROFLUID AS SOFT ROBOTS AGENTS
  Introduction
  Description of Ferrofluids
  Deformation Behaviors of FDRs
  Applications of FDRs
  Summary

  CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS
  Other Functional Materials used for Miniature Soft Robots
  Multi-Material Integration Strategies
  Multifunctional Integration for Miniature Soft Robots with Perception Capabilities
  Perspectives toward Intelligent and Autonomous Soft Robots