A Bioinspired Programmable Soft Bilayer Actuator Based on Aluminum Exoskeleton

Abstract

AbstractThe bilayer stimuli‐responsive soft actuator that combines an active layer with a passive layer in a single material system can facilitate soft actuators with unprecedented features, and therefore, it is pushing the frontiers of microrobotics. However, the stimuli‐response of a bilayer soft actuator is fixed due to its bending mechanism. It makes the motion mode (such as the bending angle, bending direction, etc.) fixed and cannot meet various needs in real life. Inspired by shrimps, an approach combining hard exoskeleton structure and soft stimuli‐responsive actuator is presented. Applying exoskeleton structures to the soft actuator cannot only effectively protect the material, but also change the movement strategy of the actuator and realize the control of movement. Since the exoskeleton structure in this scheme is an independent part and does not affect the properties of the soft actuator, the proposed method can be easily applied to various bilayer stimulus‐responsive soft actuators.