Photoresponsive Biomimetic Soft Robots Enabled by Near‐Infrared‐Driven and Ultrarobust Sandwich‐Structured Nanocomposite Films

Abstract

Soft robots, intelligent structures built up of smart soft materials, are capable of being programmed to perform delicate work. Recently, plenty of biomimetic soft robots with functionalities of grasping, sensing, searching, and transporting have been exploited by emulating activities of living creatures adapting to ecological environments. However, mass production of biomimetic soft robots has remained a grand challenge while maintaining stable pre‐engineered functionalities under distinct circumstances, which significantly constrains their practical applications. To this end, a facile and scalable approach that can be utilized for mass‐producing sandwich‐structured photoresponsive polyimide (PI)/Au/low‐density polyethylene (LDPE) nanocomposite films is reported. Attributed to the remote and precise‐driven mode, reversible and stable actuation behavior, and the ultrarobust mechanical properties of the sandwich‐structured PI/Au/LDPE nanocomposite films, it was possible to devise a variety of photoresponsive biomimetic soft robots such as artificial flytrap, directionally moveable caterpillar‐inspired walker, and dolphin‐like cruisable and loadable swimmer via simply tailoring them into predesigned geometries.

Keywords

• biomimetic soft robots
• photoresponsive actuation behavior
• sandwich-structured nanocomposite films
• ultrarobust mechanical properties