EFRI C3 SoRo: Micron-scale Morphing Soft-Robots for Interfacing With Biological Systems

在这个项目下，一个由物理学家、化学工程师、机器人专家和电气工程师组成的多学科团队将创造一种新型的电池大小的机器人，这种机器人集成了机载化学传感器、光伏和电子逻辑。机器人将由外部光源供电，光线颜色的变化可以用来触发不同的动作。机器人将被制成平板，使用与制造计算机芯片相同的可扩展工艺。精确设计的切口和驱动铰链将使机器人能够拉伸和弯曲成任意形状的二维表面。结果将是一个功能齐全的自主机器人，能够根据外部刺激（如环境中的化学梯度）移动和改变形状。最终，这种机器人可能被用来在人体中导航，并与目标组织和器官相互作用。结果可能是治疗疾病或减轻有害细菌生物膜的新方法。该项目包括扩大代表性不足的群体参与研究和推进工程和科学教育的活动。该资助将支持微米级机器人超材料表面的开发，该表面可以可逆地转化为任意三维形状，用于微尺度运动，朝向分泌生化信号的软组织模拟物，将其包裹并聚合以封装组织模拟物。机器人的设计基于这样一种思想，即控制表面的局部膨胀或收缩，可以将平面片转化为任何二维表面。这一设计原理将通过光刻技术制造一个微米级的负泊松比的超材料片来实现，该超材料片由面板和连接的驱动铰链组成。负泊松比将使薄片局部膨胀，改变其高斯曲率，并采用多种形状。将采用成熟的制造技术为面板配备化学传感器和控制铰链驱动的分布式控制电路。总的来说，将化学信号处理成电子驱动和运动模式的能力，使机器人能够在化学源周围移动、包裹和聚合，这将大大扩展软微型机器人的前沿。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Under this project, a multidisciplinary team of physicists, chemical engineers, roboticists, and electrical engineers will create a new class of cell-sized robots that incorporate on-board chemical sensors, photovoltaics, and electronic logic. The robots will be powered by an external light source, where changes in the color of the light can be used to trigger different sets of actions. The robots will be fabricated as a flat sheet, using the same scalable processes that are used to manufacture computer chips. Precisely designed cuts and actuated hinges will enable the robot to stretch and bend into arbitrarily shaped two-dimensional surfaces. The result will be a fully functional autonomous robot, capable of moving and changing shape in response to external stimuli, such as chemical gradients in the environment. Ultimately such robots may be used to navigate through the body and interact with targeted tissues and organs. The result may be new approaches for treatment of disease, or mitigation of harmful bacterial biofilms. The project includes activities to broaden participation of underrepresented groups in research and advance engineering and science education. This grant will support development of micrometer-scale robotic metamaterial surfaces that can reversibly transform into arbitrary three-dimensional shapes for microscale locomotion towards a soft tissue analogue secreting biochemical signals, wrap around it and polymerize to encapsulate the tissue analogue. The robot design is predicated on the idea that controlling the local expansion or contraction of a surface makes possible the transformation of a planar sheet into any two-dimensional surface. This design principle will be achieved by lithographically fabricating a micrometer-scale metamaterial sheet with negative Poisson ratio consisting of panels and connecting actuating hinges. The negative Poisson ratio will enable the sheet to locally expand, change its Gaussian curvature, and adopt a variety of shapes. Mature fabrication technologies will be used to equip the panels with chemical sensors and distributed control circuits that will control hinge actuation. Collectively, the ability to process chemical signals into electronic actuation and locomotion modes that allow the robot to move, wrap, and polymerize around the chemical source will substantially expand the frontiers of soft microrobotics.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.