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Updated: Jul 2, 2025

A Method to Manipulate Surface Tension of a Liquid Metal via Surface Oxidation and Reduction
Published on: January 26, 2016
Principles and methods of liquid metal actuators
Jiao Ye1, Wentao Xiang2,3, Cai Cheng2,3
1School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Wuhan Institute of Technology, Wuhan, 430205, China. yejiao18@mails.ucas.ac.cn.
Abstract:
As a promising material, liquid metals (LMs) have gained considerable interest in the field of soft robotics due to their ability to move as designed routines or change their shape dramatically under external stimuli. Inspired by the science fiction film Terminator, tremendous efforts have been devoted to liquid robots with high compliance and intelligence. How to manipulate LM droplets is crucial to achieving this goal. Accordingly, this review is dedicated to presenting the principles driving LMs and summarizing the potential methods to develop LM actuators of high maneuverability. Moreover, the recent progress of LM robots based on these methods is overviewed. The challenges and prospects of implementing autonomous robots have been proposed.
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