Crawling soft robot powered by temperature change

Detailed in Science Robotics, the inchworm-inspired robot could have applications in healthcare such as crawling through human bodies to deliver medicine, the team believes.

“It seems very simplistic but this is an object moving without batteries, without wiring, without an external power supply of any kind – just on the swelling and shrinking of gel,” said senior author David Gracias, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

“Our study shows how the manipulation of shape, dimensions and patterning of gels can tune morphology to embody a kind of intelligence for locomotion.”

Robots are made almost exclusively of hard materials like metals and plastics, an obstacle in the push to create robots ideal for human biomedical advancements.

Water-based gels are one of the most promising materials in the field of soft robotics, the team said. Researchers have previously demonstrated that gels that swell or shrink in response to temperature can be used to create smart structures.