Printed inchworm robot makes self-assembly moves (w/ Video)

Printed inchworm robot makes self-assembly moves (w/ Video): This robot uses shape-memory polymers (SMPs) for the self-folding process. These are "smart" materials that can go from one state to another via a stimulus such as temperature change. With the SMPs, the inchworm robot is able to fold into desired shapes. Once it folds, a battery and motor are attached. With enough current, the team's robot was able to fold into its functional form with fold angle deviations within six degrees. The printed robot demonstrated locomotion at a speed of two millimeters per second.

Soft autonomous robot inches along like an earthworm - MIT News Office

Soft autonomous robot inches along like an earthworm - MIT News Office: Now researchers at MIT, Harvard University and Seoul National University have engineered a soft autonomous robot that moves via peristalsis, crawling across surfaces by contracting segments of its body, much like an earthworm. The robot, made almost entirely of soft materials, is remarkably resilient: Even when stepped upon or bludgeoned with a hammer, the robot is able to inch away, unscathed...
The robot is named “Meshworm” for the flexible, meshlike tube that makes up its body. Researchers created “artificial muscle” from wire made of nickel and titanium — a shape-memory alloy that stretches and contracts with heat. They wound the wire around the tube, creating segments along its length, much like the segments of an earthworm. They then applied a small current to the segments of wire, squeezing the mesh tube and propelling the robot forward...

Video: This Octobot Walks Using Shape-Memory Alloy Tentacles

Video: This Octobot Walks Using Shape-Memory Alloy Tentacles: The OCTOPUS Project isn’t showering us with details at this point, but via IEEE we know that the larger tentacles at the front are the SMA Arms (for shape-memory alloy) that are manipulated purely by heating the material to change its length--no servo motors or cable assemblies required. The rest are silicone with steel cables down the center that are actuated by arrays of smaller nylon cables.

Understanding shape-shifting polymers (w/ Video)

Understanding shape-shifting polymers (w/ Video): "While shape-shifting polymers have been known for a few decades, until now there has been no detailed understanding of the basic molecular behavior responsible for the materials’ properties, and so trying to adapt them to any new application was essentially “all just trial and error,” Anand says. A numerical understanding of their behavior didn’t matter for applications such as heat-shrink tubing, but increasingly these materials are being harnessed for critical applications in biomedical devices, data-storage systems or self-deployable space structures that require great precision."