This power-amplification strategy provides a basis for propulsive motion to advance the capabilities of miniaturized soft robotic systems.

A team of researchers led by a Chinese scientists has developed a light-driven launch system for tiny robots. The new development is expected to transform ballistics and aerospace industry.

The light-driven hydrogel launcher is inspired by squirting cucumber plants.

Claimed to release energy in only 0.3 milliseconds, the launcher can take off from any kind of surface.

Researchers claimed that the engineered accumulated strain energy-fracture power-amplification method is inspired by the pressurized fluidic squirting mechanism of Ecballium elaterium (squirting cucumber plants).

Photothermal response

Published in journal Nature , researchers realized a light-driven hydrogel launcher that harnesses fast liquid vapourization triggered by the photothermal response of an embedded graphene suspension.

“This vapourization leads to appreciable elastic energy storage within the surrounding hydrogel network, followed by rapid elastic energy release within 0.3 ms. These soft hydrogel robots achieve controlled launching at high velocity with a predictable trajectory,” said researchers.

The study claimed that robotic tasks that require robust propulsion abilities, such as jumping, ejecting, or catapulting, require power-amplification strategies where kinetic energy is generated from pre-stored energy. To solve this issue, researchers introduced their game-changing method.

The launcher can travel a distance 643 times its own body height and could even have the potential to be used like a soft bullet. It also has potential to be used like smart-seeding agriculture robot or medicinal robots for deep tissue sampling, according to reports.

Disk-shaped launcher tested on still and moving surfaces

The small, disk-shaped launcher has a diameter of just 7mm (0.27 inches) and a thickness of 3mm, but it is able to travel more than 1.93 (6.33 feet) metres vertically. The adaptable launch system, which the team tested on still and moving surfaces, including leaves, bark, and viscous liquids, could be used to develop untethered medical robots that require a high force output to enter deep tissue, reported SCMP .

Using accumulated strain energy-fracture method, researchers created the artificial squirting cucumber that disperses artificial seeds over metres, which can further achieve smart seeding through an integrated radio-frequency identification chip.

Power-amplification strategy provides a basis for propulsive motion

This power-amplification strategy provides a basis for propulsive motion to advance the capabilities of miniaturized soft robotic systems, according to research.

Researchers also claimed that the system could be used in ballistic weapons. However, they have not conducted any special test in this area.

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The team demonstrated the use of the launcher in a smart seed robot by attaching a seed and radio-frequency identification (RFID) to the hydrogel matrix. When launched into a smart seed bed, the RFID is read by sensors to identify the seed type and broadcast care instructions, reported SCMP

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