Continuous and controlled shape morphing is essential for soft machines to conform, grasp, and move while interacting safely with their surroundings. Prof. Ke Liu and his collaborators (Mr. F. Hacker and Prof. C. Daraio) developed a soft, robotic surface that allows for large, reprogrammable, and pliable shape morphing into smooth 3D geometries. The robotic surface consists of a layered design composed of two active networks serving as artificial muscles, one passive network serving as a skeleton, and cover scales serving as an artificial skin. The active network consists of a grid of strips made of heat-responsive liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) containing stretchable heating coils. The magnitude and speed of contraction of the LCEs can be controlled by varying the input electric currents. The 1D contraction of the LCE strips activates in-plane and out-of-plane deformations; these deformations are both necessary to transform a flat surface into arbitrary 3D geometries. The robotic surface provides sufficient mechanical stiffness and stability to manipulate other objects. This approach has potential to address the needs of a range of applications beyond shape changes, such as human-robot interactions and reconfigurable electronics.

The work was published in Science Robotics on June 14, 2017.

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