Contents
26 August 2020
Vol 5, Issue 45
Vol 5, Issue 45
Focus
- Roboticists should never look at their creations in the same way again
Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin offers a thought experiment in human-robot interaction.
- Enhancing insect flight research with a lab-on-cables
A cable-driven robot that tracks flying insects at close range offers a useful method to study insects in free flight.
- Tensegrity metamaterials for soft robotics
3D-printed flexible tensegrities with metamaterial properties enable customizable complex locomotion in soft robots.
- Integrating chemical fuels and artificial muscles for untethered microrobots
Continued development of untethered insect-scale robots will require codesigned power and actuation strategies.
- Structural batteries take a load off
Multifunctional Zn-air batteries provide energy storage and a body-integrated protective cover for robots.
Research Articles
- 3D-printed programmable tensegrity for soft robotics
Additive manufacturing enables the integration of smart materials into tensegrity metamaterials for functional soft systems.
- An 88-milligram insect-scale autonomous crawling robot driven by a catalytic artificial muscle
A subgram fully autonomous insect-sized crawling robot called RoBeetle is powered by the controlled catalytic combustion of fuel.
- Biomorphic structural batteries for robotics
Conformal, rechargeable zinc-air batteries from biomimetic materials serving as protective covers replace stand-alone batteries.
About The Cover
ONLINE COVER RoBeetle Flexes Its Muscle. Untethered, small-scale robots are often powered by miniature batteries with low specific energy (compared with animal fat and chemical fuels). Inspired by the metabolism of animals, Yang et al. developed a robot, called RoBeetle, with size and mass comparable to those of a small insect that achieves crawling locomotion using an artificial micromuscle powered by the controlled catalytic combustion of methanol. RoBeetle can carry payloads up to 2.6 times its body weight, crawl on rough surfaces, and clamber up inclines of 15°. This month's cover is a photograph of RoBeetle on a leaf (see also the Focus by Truby et al.). [CREDIT: XIUFENG YANG AND NÉSTOR O. PÉREZ-ARANCIBIA]
