Solar-Driven Soft Robots

Stimuli-responsive materials have been lately employed in soft robotics enabling new classes of robots that can emulate biological systems. The untethered operation of soft materials with high power light, magnetic field, and electric field has been previously demonstrated. While electric and magnetic fields can be stimulants for untethered actuation, their rapid decay as a function of distance limits their efficacy for long-range operations. In contrast, light-in the form of sunlight or collimated from an artificial source (e.g., laser, Xenon lamps)-does not decay rapidly, making it suitable for long-range excitation of untethered soft robots. In this work, an approach to harnessing sunlight for the untethered operation of soft robots is presented. By employing a selective solar absorber film and a low-boiling point (34 °C) fluid, light-operated soft robotic grippers are demonstrated, grasping and lifting objects almost 25 times the mass of the fluid in a controllable fashion. The method addresses one of the salient challenges in the field of untethered soft robotics. It precludes the use of bulky peripheral components (e.g., compressors, valves, or pressurized gas tank) and enables the untethered long-range operation of soft robots.