soft robotics

Self-healing materials can repair damage caused by mechanical wear, thereby extending lifetime of devices. Here, a transparent, self-healing, highly stretchable ionic conductor is presented that autonomously heals after experiencing severe mechanical damage.

Published in ACS Nano: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsnano.6b05545

A cantilever beam with elastic hinge pulled antagonistically by two dielectric elastomer (DE) membranes in tension forms a foldable actuator if one DE membrane is subject to a voltage and releases part of tension. Simply placing parallel rigid bars on the prestressed DE membranes results in enhanced actuators working in pure shear state. We report design, analysis, fabrication and experiment of soft mobile robots that are moved by such foldable DE actuators.

Buckling of Elastomeric Beams Enables Actuation of Soft Machines

Dian Yang, Bobak Mosadegh, Alar Ainla, Benjamin Lee, Fatemeh Khashai, Zhigang Suo, Katia Bertoldi, George M Whitesides

The Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara invites applications for two tenure-track faculty positions at the level of Assistant Professor.  

The Department is looking for exceptional individuals in all areas of mechanical engineering, with particular emphasis on i) soft robotics, including soft body design and mechanics, sensing and actuation, and ii) micro/nano science and technology, including micro/nano additive manufacturing, micro/nano robotics, and micro/nano energy sensing and heat transfer. 

Shaoting Lin, Changyong Cao, Qiming Wang, Mark Gonzalez, John E. Dolbow, Xuanhe Zhao