Octobot: Harvard engineers create first entirely soft robot

[Walkir]

Harvard engineers create first entirely soft robot
25th August 2016 11:21 am
Engineers from Harvard's John A Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have created an autonomous miniature robot made entirely from soft materials.
(Credit: Lori Sanders)
Nicknamed octobot, the device is powered by microfluidics. Its design was inspired by octopuses, whose movement, strength and elasticity have long been an inspiration for those working in soft robotics. But creating robots with absolutely no rigid parts is extremely challenging, and has never been achieved before, according to the researchers.
"One long-standing vision for the field of soft robotics has been to create robots that are entirely soft, but the struggle has always been in replacing rigid components like batteries and electronic controls with analogous soft systems and then putting it all together," said Robert Wood, Harvard's Charles River Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences

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Harvard engineers create first entirely soft robot

An integrated design and fabrication strategy for entirely soft, autonomous robots
Michael Wehner, Ryan L. Truby, Daniel J. Fitzgerald, Bobak Mosadegh, George M. Whitesides, Jennifer A. Lewis & Robert J. Wood
Nature 536, 451–455 (25 August 2016) doi:10.1038/nature19100
Received9 March 2016
Accepted 07 July 2016
Published online 24 August 2016

Soft robots possess many attributes that are difficult, if not impossible, to achieve with conventional robots composed of rigid materials1, 2. Yet, despite recent advances, soft robots must still be tethered to hard robotic control systems and power sources3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. New strategies for creating completely soft robots, including soft analogues of these crucial components, are needed to realize their full potential. Here we report the untethered operation of a robot composed solely of soft materials. The robot is controlled with microfluidic logic11 that autonomously regulates fluid flow and, hence, catalytic decomposition of an on-board monopropellant fuel supply. Gas generated from the fuel decomposition inflates fluidic networks downstream of the reaction sites, resulting in actuation12. The body and microfluidic logic of the robot are fabricated using moulding and soft lithography, respectively, and the pneumatic actuator networks, on-board fuel reservoirs and catalytic reaction chambers needed for movement are patterned within the body via a multi-material, embedded 3D printing technique13, 14. The fluidic and elastomeric architectures required for function span several orders of magnitude from the microscale to the macroscale. Our integrated design and rapid fabrication approach enables the programmable assembly of multiple materials within this architecture, laying the foundation for completely soft, autonomous robots.

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http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v536/n7617/full/nature19100.html
And now half the net is looking for a way to make those tentacles hard again.

 

[Sum Sine Regno]

Huh. While some people are being odd with this, my first thought was "Shoggoths" and having horrific amorphous servitors to do my bidding. You know smote my foes, serve me ice tea, play with the dog, build cyclopean structures...cast down humanity and force us into the sea...