Synergizing microfluidics with soft robotics: A perspective on miniaturization and future directions
Synergizing microfluidics with soft robotics: A perspective on miniaturization and future directions
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DOI：
10.1063/5.0036991
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发表时间：
2021-01-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.2
通讯作者：
Ren, Carolyn L.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Gao, Run Ze;Ren, Carolyn L.
软机器人在推进基础和技术方面已经经历了十年的巨大进步。它也有广泛的应用，如手术辅助，处理精致的食物，以及由其柔软的性质驱动的可穿戴辅助系统，比传统的硬机器人更人性化。软机器人的快速发展带来了许多挑战，这些挑战因应用而异。常见的挑战包括实现不同功能的软材料的可用性以及驱动所需的控制精度和速度。在可穿戴系统的背景下，小型化似乎是要克服的另一个障碍，以便开发具有高用户接受度的真正有影响力的系统。微流体作为一个研究领域已经经历了二十多年的紧张和集中的研究，产生了许多基础理论和实用工具，这些理论和工具有可能协同应用于软机器人技术的小型化。这个观点旨在介绍微流体和软机器人之间的潜在协同作用作为一个研究课题，并提出未来的方向，可以利用这两个领域的优势。
Soft robotics has gone through a decade of tremendous progress in advancing both fundamentals and technologies. It has also seen a wide range of applications such as surgery assistance, handling of delicate foods, and wearable assistive systems driven by its soft nature that is more human friendly than traditional hard robotics. The rapid growth of soft robotics introduces many challenges, which vary with applications. Common challenges include the availability of soft materials for realizing different functions and the precision and speed of control required for actuation. In the context of wearable systems, miniaturization appears to be an additional hurdle to be overcome in order to develop truly impactful systems with a high user acceptance. Microfluidics as a field of research has gone through more than two decades of intense and focused research resulting in many fundamental theories and practical tools that have the potentials to be applied synergistically to soft robotics toward miniaturization. This perspective aims to introduce the potential synergy between microfluidics and soft robotics as a research topic and suggest future directions that could leverage the advantages of the two fields.