Researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and TU Dresden have developed a groundbreaking robotic material capable of transitioning between rigid and fluid states by manipulating internal forces. Drawing inspiration from the adaptive properties of living tissues, this innovation combines magnets, motors, and light sensors to enable self-healing and real-time reconfiguration.
The research team designed disk-shaped robots that can attach to each other using perimeter magnets, allowing the collective to behave as a rigid material. Each robot is equipped with eight motorized gears around its circular exterior, enabling the modulation of tangential forces between units. By adjusting these forces, the researchers facilitated reconfigurations in otherwise locked and rigid collectives, allowing them to reshape and adapt to different tasks.
To coordinate these shape changes, the robots utilize light sensors with polarized filters. When exposed to light, the polarization informs each robot on the direction to spin its gears, guiding the collective’s transformation. This mechanism mirrors the way living cells know their orientation and apply forces to change tissue shape. The ability to fluidize and solidify sections of the collective enables the robotic material to adapt its properties dynamically, akin to living embryonic tissues.
This advancement holds significant potential for various applications, including the development of smart materials that can withstand substantial weights while reshaping, manipulating objects, and even self-healing. By adjusting properties among the robots, the collective can perform complex tasks that traditional rigid or soft materials cannot achieve alone.
The proof-of-concept robotic group currently consists of 20 relatively large units. As research progresses, scaling down the size of individual robots and increasing their number could lead to more versatile and practical applications in fields such as construction, medicine, and disaster response.
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