Wireless Flexible Actuator Photoelectric Synergistically Driven for Environment Adaptability Crawling Robots

Abstract

Wirelessly driven flexible actuators are crucial to the development of flexible robotic crawling. However, great challenges still remain for the crawling of flexible actuators in complex environments. Herein, we reported a wireless flexible actuator synergistically driven by wireless power transmission (WPT) technology and near-infrared (NIR) light, which consists of a poly(dimethylsiloxane)-graphene oxide (PDMS-GO) composite layer, eutectic gallium-indium alloy (EGaIn), a PDMS layer, and a polyimide (PI) layer. By optimizing the parameters of EGaIn and the concentration of the PDMS-GO composite film, the actuator has excellent bending ability and blocking force under different conditions driven by photoelectronic synergy. In addition, we fabricated a flexible crawling robot with high environmental adaptability by adding crawling structures at both ends of the actuator, which causes a discrepancy in friction between the front and rear feet. The flexible crawling robot has high stability, large deformation, and excellent crawling ability for wirelessly crawling on a plane, slope, and plane with different roughnesses. This work provides an idea for the application of wireless robots in complex environments.