Science Robotics
© 2019 EPFL
A soft robotic insect that survives being flattened by a fly swatter
Xinchang Liu (Integrated Actuators Laboratory, LAI) has developped a fully embeded control electronics, composed a HV step-up module and the battery to drive a soft robot equipped with dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) designed by Xiaobin Ji (Soft Transducers Laboratory, LMTS) and colleagues from the University of Cergy-Pontoise, France. This intelligent insect includes a microcontroller for a brain and photodiodes as eyes, allowing it to recognize black and white patterns, enabling DEAnsect to follow any line drawn on the ground.
Xiaobin Ji, Xinchang Liu, Vito Cacucciolo, Matthias Imboden, Yoan Civet, Alae El Haitami, Sophie Cantin, Yves Perriard & Herbert Shea, “An autonomous untethered fast soft robotic insect driven by low-voltage dielectric elastomer actuators,” Science Robotics, 4, eaaz6451 (2019)
