Engineers have developed a process that allows soft robots that grow like plants in the light
An innovative, plant-inspired extrusion method that promotes the growth of synthetic materials has been robots created by an interdisciplinary team of scientists and engineers at the University of Minnesota. The new method will enable researchers to create better soft robots that can travel through challenging terrain, inside the human body.
Robots are evolving every day into highly autonomous machines that can navigate and function on their own in a variety of contexts as the robotics industry grows. Scientists have developed robots that can grow with light just like a vine or any other reaching plant. This robotics creation allows those soft robots to grow like plants. Soft robots like plants are the first time that these concepts are fundamentally demonstrated. These soft robots’ innovative design would enable them to traverse difficult terrain and generally inaccessible spaces, making them ideal for tasks like search and rescue operations, and constructing underground infrastructure.
The novel design, on the other hand, was created by a group of scientists and engineers from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. It makes use of a process called photopolymerization, which turns liquid monomers into solid mass using light. As a result, the robots don’t need to drag solid objects behind them and can make a more flexible path.
The paper appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).
In the growing discipline of “soft robotics,” flexible, soft materials are used to create robots rather than rigid ones. Soft-growing robots can generate new material and “grow” while moving. These machines might be employed for tasks that humans can’t perform in remote locations, like constructing or checking tubes below ground or traveling inside the human body for biomedical uses.
Chris Ellison, a professor at the University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering and one of the paper’s primary authors, said, “This is the first time these principles have been fundamentally demonstrated.” The competitiveness of our nation and the introduction of new products to the public depends heavily on the development of innovative manufacturing techniques. The usage of robots in hazardous and distant locations is growing, and these are the kinds of places where this study could have an effect.
Similar to how a 3D printer is fed solid filament to make its shaped product, current soft robots drag a trail of solid material behind them and can utilize heat and/or pressure to turn that material into a more durable structure. However, it becomes increasingly challenging to draw the solid material track around bends and curves, making it challenging for the robots to move across terrain with obstacles or twisting roads.
By creating a novel method of extrusion—a technique in which material is forced through a hole to take on a certain shape—the research team was able to find a solution to this issue. The robot can produce its synthetic material from a liquid rather than a solid, thanks to this novel method.
According to Matthew Hausladen, the paper’s first author and a Ph.D. candidate in the College of Science and Engineering, “we were particularly impressed by how plants and fungi develop. “We converted that into an engineering system, taking the premise that plants and fungi add material at the end of their bodies, either at their root tips or at their new shoots.”
Water is used by plants to carry the building pieces that eventually solidify into roots as they spread outward. Using a process called photopolymerization, which turns liquid monomers into solid materials using light, the researchers were able to replicate this process with synthetic material. With the aid of this innovation, the soft robots will be able to go through tight spaces and around curves without having to drag anything heavy behind them.
There are uses for this innovative procedure in production as well. Operations that require heat, pressure, and expensive machinery to produce and shape materials might not be necessary because the researchers’ method merely requires liquid and light.
The involvement of material scientists, chemical engineers, and robotic engineers is “a crucial aspect of this effort,” according to Ellison. “We offered something new to this project by combining all of our various abilities, and I’m sure that none of us could have completed it on our own. This is a fantastic illustration of how scientific collaboration allows researchers to tackle extremely challenging basic issues while simultaneously having an impact on technology.
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