Three-Dimensional Ion Polymer–Metal Composite Soft Robots

Abstract

This study aims to develop three-dimensional soft robots for special situations that cannot be easily resolved by normal hard-metal robots. We use an ion polymer–metal composite actuator, which is a soft actuator, moved using 1–10 V. The objective of our study is twofold: first, to develop a method to create 3D soft robots; and second, to develop a novel material to increase the performance of soft robots. The actuator fabricated using the proposed material exhibits a performance 113% higher than that of conventional actuators.