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Rod-based Fabrication of Customizable Soft Robotic Pneumatic Gripper Devices for Delicate Tissue Manipulation

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Tetherless and Batteryless Soft Navigators and Grippers.

Zhen Han¹, Yang Li¹, Xinjun Wu²

¹School of Material Science and Engineering, Tiangong University, Tianjin 300387, China.

ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces

|March 5, 2024

Summary

This study presents a novel battery-free soft robot using a shape memory hydrogel. This remotely controlled soft actuator can navigate complex paths and grasp objects, advancing soft robotics and medical applications.

Keywords:

magnetic navigation photothermal conversion shape memory hydrogels soft actuators untethered

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Area of Science:

Materials Science
Robotics
Biomedical Engineering

Background:

Remotely controllable soft actuators are crucial for soft robotics, exploration, and minimally invasive medical treatments.
Shape memory polymers offer potential for untethered soft robots due to their energy storage and shape deformation capabilities.

Purpose of the Study:

To develop an untethered, battery-free soft navigator and gripper using a novel shape memory hydrogel.
To integrate magnetic responsiveness and photothermal conversion for remote control.

Main Methods:

Fabricated a shape memory hydrogel via hydrogen bonding between gelatin and tannic acid.
Incorporated Fe3O4 nanoparticles for magnetic and photothermal properties.
Assembled a bilayer hydrogel actuator with a shape memory layer and an inert layer.

Main Results:

The hydrogel exhibited excellent shape memory properties driven by hydrogen bonding and gelatin's coil-triple helix transition.
The bilayer actuator demonstrated complex shape transformations upon thermal or light stimulation.
Successfully created remotely controllable soft grippers capable of navigating tortuous paths and grasping objects.

Conclusions:

The developed shape memory hydrogel is a promising material for untethered, remotely controllable soft robots.
This approach offers a new pathway for designing advanced soft actuators for various applications.
The magnetic and light-responsive hydrogel enables sophisticated navigation and manipulation tasks.