ソフトアクチュエータを用いた蠕動運動型マイクロゲルロボットの駆動

抄録

We have proposed the microgel robot having soft-rigid hybrid structure. We fabricate a microgel robots using two types of material. One is SU-8 that is epoxy resin as a rigid structure. The other is PNIPAAm that is a thermo-responsive gel as a soft actuator. The volume of PNIPAAm changes depending on its temperature. We use the volume change as actuator. PNIPAAm is mixed with a graphene as a light absorber. In this study, we fabricated a microgel robot has three actuators. Therefore, we irradiate these actuators with a light to drive the robot. By irradiating three actuators with a light in sequence, the microgel robot moves forward with peristaltic motion. In addition, we evaluate the displacement of the microgel robot.