The locomotor behavior of creatures in nature can bring a lot of inspiration for the fabrication of soft actuators. In this paper, we fabricated a bionic light-driven swimming soft robot that can perform grasping of tiny objects and achieve the task of object transfer. By adding carbon nanotubes (CNTs), the temperature-sensitive hydrogels can be endowed with light-responsive properties. The fabricated composite hydrogel structure can control the contraction and expansion of volume by light, which is similar to the contraction and diastole behavior of muscles. The oscillation of the fish tail and the grasping action of the normally closed micromanipulator can be achieved by the control of the irradiation of the xenon light source. The bending of the bionic arm can be controlled by the irradiation of a near-infrared (NIR) laser, which transforms the spatial position and posture of the micromanipulator. The proposed scheme is feasible for miniaturized fabrication and application of flexible actuators. This work provides some important insights for the study of light-driven microrobots and light-driven flexible actuators.
Keywords: DMD; bionic swimming soft robot; flexible actuator; light-driven; light-responsive hydrogel; micromanipulator; poly-N-isopropylacrylamide (PNIPAM).