Robot made of pig gelatin biodegrades when no length is needed

An origami-inspired robotic arm made with material from cotton plants and pigs biodetrades when no length was needed. Such a soft robot could be further development to perform medical procedures inside the body and then pass safely through it.

Soft robotics are a growing field because there are a number of applications where a hard, stiff unit would be unsafe or unwelcome, such as when working in extremely tight spaces in machines or near – or even inside – humans.

Most experimental soft robots are made with synthetic materials such as silicon rubber. Now Hanqing Jiang at Westlake University in Zhejiang, China and his colleagues has created a simple version from cellulose derived from cotton and gelatin from pigs, which then biodegrades harmlessly. It can be controlled by a computer and even act as a controller in itself.

To do so, the researchers created a Kresling origami form formed a tube that can be compressed and bent side-to-side, and joined the oven of Thesesus together to produce a rudimentary robotic arm 240 millimeters long. By tightening or loosening three equally large threads that run inside this arm, they were able to manipulate it in any direction using external engines.

The gelatin also acts as a sensor and changes electrical resistance during bending. By detecting these resistance values, the researchers could determine exactly what position the arm was in at any time. They even demonstrate that a smaller construction of modules could be used as a joystick for input signals in a similar way by passing on changing resistance values ​​to a small computer, and these signals could again be used to control animother -soft robot arm.

“In the future, we may have more robots on the planet than humans, so there will be plenty of waste,” says Jiang. “On deposition is the place where we need these robots to disappear.” Jiang says the robot’s current materials are decomposed harmlessly in the environment, but slightly different would be necessary for it to break down completely within the human body.

Kaspar Althofer at Queen Mary University of London says soft robots could be used in a clearer, such as pushing into the tight spaces of industrial processes, interacting safely with people or even in medical procedures, Especially surgery. “You could leave your tools in such a scenario, so to speak without any problems,” says Althofer. “I am convinced that soft robotics can go much further than where we are now. It is still a relatively new area.