A vine robot successfully navigates a model of the arteries in a human body. Credit: David Baillot/University of California San Diego
Researchers have developed steerable, vine-like robots that can navigate convoluted paths in delicate environments for applications such as surgical procedures and engine inspections.
The robots, just 3-7mm in diameter and 25cm in length, can travel through models of human arteries and of the inside of a jet engine.
Existing steerable vine robots are much larger – on the scale of centimetres to metres – and are steered by compressed air, motors or tendons which tend not to work well at smaller scales.
Researchers integrated a thin layer of liquid crystal elastomer at strategic locations in a soft, robotic skin to overcome these size limitations in a new study.
These liquid crystal elastomer ‘actuators’ contract when warmed by flexible heaters to steer the direction of growth.
A vine-like robot navigated a model of the interior of a jet engine. Credit: David Baillot/University of California San Diego
Experiments revealed the robots could make several turns of more than 100° while controlled either by temperature, or pressure, or both.
They could also squeeze through a gap 50% thinner than their diameter.
“Our work represents a step toward small, steerable, soft vine robots for applications in delicate and constrained environments,” says the paper’s corresponding author, Tania K. Morimoto, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California San Diego, USA.
First author Dr Sukjun Kim, a researcher in Morimoto’s lab, adds: “The soft skin developed in this work could further be adapted for other various soft robotic systems, such as wearable haptic devices, soft grippers and locomotive soft robots.”
The paper is published in Science Advances.