MEMS Soft Robots
March 26, 2019 | Terry Sharrer
In this piece, engineers at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne describe this technology for manufacturing soft micro-robots which might be used in internal medicine. “We present a scalable and modular framework that combines spatially resolved manufacturing and control strategies for the development of MEMS hydrogel devices. The method of fabrication is simple and flexible. By varying the number and distribution of actuators or playing with the design of the compliant mechanisms, we can generate a repertoire of complex micromachines. The MAs show outstanding performance with respect to the achievable maximum actuation strain (30%) and fast contraction–relaxation kinetics (order of milliseconds).” MORE
Image Credit: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne