3D Printing of Small?Scale Soft Robots with Programmable Magnetization

Rotational 3D printing of damage-tolerant composites with programmable mechanics

Natural composites exhibit exceptional mechanical performance that often arises from complex fiber arrangements within continuous matrices. Inspired by these natural systems, we developed a rotational 3D printing method that enables spatially controlled orientation of short fibers in polymer matrices solely by varying the nozzle rotation speed relative to the printing speed. Using this method, ...

Hybrid 3D Printing of Soft Electronics.

Hybrid 3D printing is a new method for producing soft electronics that combines direct ink writing of conductive and dielectric elastomeric materials with automated pick-and-place of surface mount electronic components within an integrated additive manufacturing platform. Using this approach, insulating matrix and conductive electrode inks are directly printed in specific layouts. Passive and a...

Soft Somatosensitive Actuators via Embedded 3D Printing.

Humans possess manual dexterity, motor skills, and other physical abilities that rely on feedback provided by the somatosensory system. Herein, a method is reported for creating soft somatosensitive actuators (SSAs) via embedded 3D printing, which are innervated with multiple conductive features that simultaneously enable haptic, proprioceptive, and thermoceptive sensing. This novel manufacturi...

Retailing with 3D Printing

Programmable springs: Developing actuators with programmable compliance for autonomous robots

Developing real robots that can exploit dynamic interactions with the environment requires the use of actuators whose behaviour can vary from high stiffness to complete compliance or zero impedance. We will outline our design for an electric actuator, called a programmable spring, which can be easily configured using a high level programming interface to emulate complex multimodal spring dampin...