Aquatic soft robot can walk, roll and transport cargo

Nearly 90 per cent water by weight and activated by light, the team confirmed the robot can pick up and transport cargo, climb hills and release a particle by ‘break-dancing’. Described as resembling a four-legged octopus, the centimetre-sized robot moves ‘without complex hardware’ and walks in the direction of an external rotating magnetic field.

According to researchers, the robot is ideal for use in aquatic environments and functions inside a water-filled tank. It is hoped that the robots could be used to recognise and actively remove unwanted particles in specific environments, and to precisely deliver bio-therapeutics or cells to specific tissues.

“Conventional robots are typically heavy machines with lots of hardware and electronics that are unable to interact safely with soft structures, including humans,” said Samuel I. Stupp, professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Chemistry, Medicine and Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern. “We have designed soft materials with molecular intelligence to enable them to behave like robots of any size and perform useful functions in tiny spaces, underwater or underground.”