Fluid-driven hydrogel actuators with an origami structure

Zhexin Huang; Cunyue Wei; Lina Dong; Anyang Wang; Hongyi Yao; Zhongwei Guo; Shengli Mi

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.104674

Fluid-driven hydrogel actuators with an origami structure

iScience. 2022 Jun 26;25(7):104674. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104674. eCollection 2022 Jul 15.

Authors

Zhexin Huang^{1

2}, Cunyue Wei¹, Lina Dong^{1

3}, Anyang Wang^{1

2}, Hongyi Yao^{1

2}, Zhongwei Guo^{1

3}, Shengli Mi^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Bio-manufacturing Engineering Laboratory, Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen 518000, Guangdong, China.
² Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
³ Macromolecular Platforms for Translational Medicine and Bio-Manufacturing Laboratory, Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, Shenzhen 518055, Guangdong, China.

Abstract

Owing to the innate good biocompatibility, tissue-like softness and other unique properties, hydrogels are of particular interest as promising compliant materials for biomimetic soft actuators. However, the actuation diversity of hydrogel actuators is always restricted by their structure design and fabrication methods. Herein, origami structures were introduced to the design of fluid-driven hydrogel actuators to achieve diverse actuation movements, and a facile fabrication strategy based on removable templates and inside-out diffusion-induced in situ hydrogel crosslinking was adopted. As a result, three types of modular cuboid actuator units (CAUs) achieved linear motion, bending, and twisting. Moreover, combinations of multiple CAUs achieved different actuation modes, including actuation decoupling, superposition, and reprogramming. The diverse actuation functionality would enable new possibilities in application fields for hydrogel soft actuators. Several simple application demos, such as grippers for grasping tasks and a multi-way circuit switch, demonstrated their potential for further applications.

Keywords: Biomimetics; Polymers; Robotics.