Skin-inspired, sensory robots for electronic implants.

Drawing inspiration from cohesive integration of skeletal muscles and sensory skins in vertebrate animals, we present a design strategy of soft robots, primarily consisting of an electronic skin (e-skin) and an artificial muscle. These robots integrate multifunctional sensing and on-demand actuation into a biocompatible platform using an in-situ solution-based method. They feature biomimetic designs that enable adaptive motions and stress-free contact with tissues, supported by a battery-free wireless module for untethered operation.

Skin-inspired, sensory robots for electronic implants.

Living organisms with motor and sensor units integrated seamlessly demonstrate effective adaptation to dynamically changing environments. Drawing inspiration from cohesive integration of skeletal muscles and sensory skins in these organisms, we present a design strategy of soft robots, primarily consisting of an electronic skin (e-skin) and an artificial muscle, that naturally couples multifunctional sensing and on-demand actuation in a biocompatible platform. We introduce an solution-based method to create an e-skin layer with diverse sensing materials (e.

Digital light processing of liquid crystal elastomers for self-sensing artificial muscles.

Artificial muscles based on stimuli-responsive polymers usually exhibit mechanical compliance, versatility, and high power-to-weight ratio, showing great promise to potentially replace conventional rigid motors for next-generation soft robots, wearable electronics, and biomedical devices. In particular, thermomechanical liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) constitute artificial muscle-like actuators that can be remotely triggered for large stroke, fast response, and highly repeatable actuations. Here, we introduce a digital light processing (DLP)-based additive manufacturing approach that automatically shear aligns mesogenic oligomers, layer-by-layer, to achieve high orientational order in the photocrosslinked structures; this ordering yields high specific work capacity (63 J kg) and energy density (0.

High NH selectivity of NiFeO sensing electrode for potentiometric sensor at elevated temperature.

NiFeO was synthesized using sol-gel method for sensing electrode material of YSZ based ammonia sensor. NiFeO-SEs sintered at 1100 °C, 1150 °C and 1200 °C were characterized by XRD, the BET method and ESEM. By testing the NH response of different sensors at 650 °C, it was observed that the 1150 °C sintered sensor had the largest response value (-104.