University professors develop first autonomous and completely soft robot.
- This small robot
is 3D printed and untethered.
- The autonomous
and soft machine can revolutionize medicine.
professors have developed a robot that promises to revolutionize medicine with
its many unique features, one of which is that the robot is very soft.
The field of medical
robotics has taken a decisive step closer to developing robots that will be a
lot more human like than any of their predecessors with the latest development
by these professors.
‘Softbot/Octobot - A 3D Printed robot using hydrogen peroxide as fuel
The research was led by
core faculty members from The Harvard University's Wyss Institute for
Biologically Inspired Engineering, Robert Wood and Jennifer A. Lewis. Robert
Wood is a Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences while Jennifer Lewis is
a professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering.
The electric board and
circuits were always rigid for robots while the soft robots that were developed
earlier wired with hard components or attached to an off board system.
The soft robots that
have been developed by these Harvard University professors do not have circuits
and electric boards and are untethered. This allows greater flexibility and
they can perform tasks with dexterity and precision without a rigid
"One long-standing vision for the field of soft robotics has been to
create robots that are entirely soft, but the struggle has always been in
replacing rigid components like batteries and electronic controls with
analogous soft systems and then putting it all together. This research
demonstrates that we can easily manufacture the key components of a simple,
entirely soft robot, which lays the foundation for more complex designs."
Octopuses have always
been at the epicenter in the field of robotics as they can perform great feats
of dexterity without an exoskeleton. This has inspired engineer to try and
build a similar mechanism that is strong and can perform tasks with greater
Talking about the
softbot developed by these researchers, called Octobot, Lewis adds,"Through
our hybrid assembly approach, we were able to 3D print each of the functional
components required within the soft robot body, including the fuel storage,
power and actuation, in a rapid manner. The octobot is a simple embodiment
designed to demonstrate our integrated design and additive fabrication strategy
for embedding autonomous functionality."
for the Octobot
The fuel for this robot
is hydrogen peroxide which is converted into gas after a reaction takes place
in the bot. This pneumatic based robot allows the gas to enter its arms,
inflating it into a balloon. According to post doctoral fellow Michael Wehner,
a reaction between hydrogen peroxide and platinum gives rise to a simple
reaction that results in a source of energy, allowing the researchers to
replace rigid fuel sources.
The reaction is
controlled by microfluidic logic circuit that controls when the hydrogen
peroxide should be converted to gas.
The process of
developing the robot is based on simple principles that have been found to be
highly effective in building a template that is soft.Medical Robotics
robotics is an interesting field that supplements medical science with
precision support from carefully designed robots. Such robots are used in a
variety of capacities that aid in better support to patient care and surgeries.
- Surgeries: Robots are currently used to
conduct surgeries or help doctors carry them out. These robots
have been found to be accurate, requiring smaller surgical openings.
in Telesurgery: The surgery is
not programmed into the robot but the doctors provide instructions in real
Assistants: The robots are used to diagnose various medical
conditions by conducting laboratory tests on samples.
Assistant: This is one of the most sought after version but it
hasn't yet been fully realized. This type of a robot is hoped to help in
The octobot will improve
the support provided by robots and the Harvard team of developers hope to
design an octobot that can interact better with its environment like crawling
and swimming. This will definitely be a design solution to look out for.
- The first autonomous, entirely soft robot - (http://www.eurekalert.org/emb_releases/2016-08/hjap-tfa081616.php)