Animating hydrogel knotbots with topology-invoked self-regulation

Abstract

Steering soft robots in a self-regulated manner remains a grand challenge, which often requires continuous symmetry breaking and recovery steps for persistent motion. Although structural morphology is found significant for robotic functions, geometric topology has rarely been considered and appreciated. Here we demonstrate a series of knotbots, namely hydrogel-based robots with knotted structures, capable of autonomous rolling and spinning/rotating motions. With symmetry broken by external stimuli and restored by self-regulation, the coupling between self-constraint-induced prestress and photothermal strain animates the knotbots continuously. Experiments and simulations reveal that nonequilibrium processes are regulated dynamically and cooperatively by self-constraints, active deformations, and self-shadowing effect of the photo-responsive gel. The active motions enable the knotbots to execute tasks including gear rotation and rod climbing. This work paves the way to devise advanced soft robots with self-regulated sustainable motions by harnessing the topology.