由外部刺激和流体压力驱动的微型变形软致动器在变形物质和小规模软机器人技术中具有广阔的前景。然而,由于致动可逆性和制造的限制,以快速和受控的方式实现丰富的形状变形和形状锁定仍然具有挑战性。这里,我们报告完全3D打印,亚毫米薄板状微型软液压执行器,具有形状记忆效应,可实现可编程快速变形和形状锁定。它结合了刚性形状记忆聚合物(SMP)和软弹性体的商业高分辨率多材料3D打印,以及在单个打印运行中嵌入弹性体的微流体通道和2D/3D通道网络的直接打印。我们展示了利用混合成分的空间图案和微流体通道网络的扩展异质性来实现通用液压致动形状变形,包括圆形,波浪形,螺旋,马鞍,和各种曲率的翘曲形状。通过激活SMP的形状记忆效应,变形的形状可以被暂时锁定并重复地恢复到它们的原始平面形式。利用微型致动器中的快速形状变形和锁定,我们展示了它们在小型物体和脆弱生物体的非侵入性操作中的潜在应用,多模态纠缠抓取,和节能机械手。本文受版权保护。保留所有权利。
Miniature shape-morphing soft actuators driven by external stimuli and fluidic pressure hold great promise in morphing matter and small-scale soft robotics. However, it remains challenging to achieve both rich shape morphing and shape locking in a fast and controlled way due to the limitations of actuation reversibility and fabrication. Here, fully 3D-printed, sub-millimeter thin-plate-like miniature soft hydraulic actuators with shape memory effect (SME) for programable fast shape morphing and shape locking, are reported. It combines commercial high-resolution multi-material 3D printing of stiff shape memory polymers (SMPs) and soft elastomers and direct printing of microfluidic channels and 2D/3D channel networks embedded in elastomers in a single print run. Leveraging spatial patterning of hybrid compositions and expansion heterogeneity of microfluidic channel networks for versatile hydraulically actuated shape morphing, including circular, wavy, helical, saddle, and warping shapes with various curvatures, are demonstrated. The morphed shapes can be temporarily locked and recover to their original planar forms repeatedly by activating SME of the SMPs. Utilizing the fast shape morphing and locking in the miniature actuators, their potential applications in non-invasive manipulation of small-scale objects and fragile living organisms, multimodal entanglement grasping, and energy-saving manipulators, are demonstrated.