Fast‐Response, Stiffness‐Tunable Soft Actuator by Hybrid Multimaterial 3D Printing

• Published in: Advanced functional materials Vol. 29; no. 15
• Main Authors: Zhang, Yuan‐Fang, Zhang, Ningbin, Hingorani, Hardik, Ding, Ningyuan, Wang, Dong, Yuan, Chao, Zhang, Biao, Gu, Guoying, Ge, Qi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 11.04.2019
• Subjects: 3-D printers; 3D printing; Actuators; Computer simulation; Cooling rate; Deformation; fast‐response; Heating; Materials science; Microchannels; Shape memory; Soft robotics; soft robots; Stiffening; Stiffness; stiffness‐tunable; Three dimensional printing

Soft robots have the appealing advantages of being highly flexible and adaptive to complex environments. However, the low‐stiffness nature of the constituent materials makes soft robotic systems incompetent in tasks requiring relatively high load capacity. Despite recent attempts to develop stiffnes...