ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2024
Defected twisted ring topology for autonomous periodic flip-spin-orbit soft robot.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- High Center-of-Mass, Multi-Legged Soft Robots Powered by Geometrically Encoded Liquid Crystal Elastomer Arc Appendages.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2026Article
- Single-parameter programmed thermomechanical actuation via 3D-printed helical director fields in liquid crystal elastomers.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Twirlbot: Tumbleweed-inspired rolling robot.Science advances · 2026Article
- Light-Driven Self-Pulsating Hydrogel with a Sliding-Delay Mechanism for Micro-Actuation and Microfluidic Applications.Micromachines · 2026Article
- Robotic ray driven by periodic ring snapping.Innovation (Cambridge (Mass.)) · 2025Article
- Fabrication of Soft Robotics by Additive Manufacturing: From Materials to Applications.Chemical reviews · 2025Review
- Supramolecular Chalcogen-Bonded Shape Memory Actuators.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2025Article
- Welding complex-shaped actuators from dynamic liquid crystal elastomers.Journal of materials chemistry. C · 2025Article
- Emergent Locomotion in Self-Sustained, Mechanically Connected Soft Matter Rings.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2025Article
- Aerial Track-Guided Autonomous Soft Ring Robot.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Article
- Embedded Physical Intelligence in Liquid Crystalline Polymer Actuators and Robots.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2025Review
- Light-steerable locomotion using zero-elastic-energy modes.Nature materials · 2024Article
- Article
- Multistability of segmented rings by programming natural curvature.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Self-sustainable autonomous soft actuators.Communications chemistry · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
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Abstract
Periodic spin-orbit motion is ubiquitous in nature, observed from electrons orbiting nuclei to spinning planets orbiting the Sun. Achieving autonomous periodic orbiting motions, along circular and noncircular paths, in soft mobile robotics is crucial for adaptive and intelligent exploration of unknown environments-a grand challenge yet to be accomplished. Here, we report leveraging a closed-loop twisted ring topology with a defect for an autonomous soft robot capable of achieving periodic spin-orbiting motions with programmed circular and re-programmed irregular-shaped trajectories. Constructed by bonding a twisted liquid crystal elastomer ribbon into a closed-loop ring topology, the robot exhibits three coupled periodic self-motions in response to constant temperature or constant light sources: inside-out flipping, self-spinning around the ring center, and self-orbiting around a point outside the ring. The coupled spinning and orbiting motions share the same direction and period. The spinning or orbiting direction depends on the twisting chirality, while the orbital radius and period are determined by the twisted ring geometry and thermal actuation. The flip-spin and orbiting motions arise from the twisted ring topology and a bonding site defect that breaks the force symmetry, respectively. By utilizing the twisting-encoded autonomous flip-spin-orbit motions, we showcase the robot's potential for intelligently mapping the geometric boundaries of unknown confined spaces, including convex shapes like circles, squares, triangles, and pentagons and concaves shapes with multi-robots, as well as health monitoring of unknown confined spaces with boundary damages.
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