Engineers at Cornell University have developed a soft robot that can recognize when and where it has been injured and then immediately repair the damage.
Rob Shepherd, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, said, “Our lab is continuously working to make robots more resilient and agile, so they can run longer with greater capabilities.” “Robots will accrue damage if you make them work for a very long time. How then can we enable them to address or heal that damage?
Stretchable fiber-optic sensors have been created by Shepherd’s Organic Robotics Lab for use in soft robots and related parts, such as skin and wearable technology.
Shepard claims that in order for self-healing to be effective, the soft robot must be able to recognize that a problem actually needs to be addressed.
To accomplish this, scientists have developed a technology that combines fiber-optic sensors with LED lights to detect even the smallest changes to the robot’s surface.
These sensors are coupled with a polyurethane urea elastomer that features disulfide exchanges for strength and hydrogen bonding for quick healing.
The resulting SHeaLDS, which stands for “self-healing light guides for dynamic sensing,” offers a soft robot that is immune to damage and can self-heal from wounds at room temperature without the need for outside assistance.
The SHeaLDS was fitted into a soft robot with four legs that resembled a starfish to showcase the technology, and feedback control was added. The robot was subsequently able to detect the damage and self-heal each cut within a minute after researchers punctured one of its legs six times. The robot was also capable of changing its gait on its own, depending on the damage it detected.
Although the material is strong, it is not unbreakable.
They resemble the characteristics of human flesh, according to Shepherd. “As a result of the chemical characteristics being altered by burning, acid, or heat, you do not heal well.” However, we are good at recovering from wounds.
In order to eventually construct “a very enduring robot that has a self-healing skin but uses the same skin to feel its environment to be able to execute more activities,” Shepherd hopes to connect SHeaLDS with machine learning algorithms capable of identifying tactile events.
