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Piezoelectric soft robot driven by mechanical energy

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Abstract

Power sources and energy-harvesting schemes are still grand challenges for soft robots. Notably, compared with other power sources, triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have shown great potential because of their low manufacturing and fabrication costs, outstanding resilience, remarkable stability, and environmental friendliness. Herein, a triboelectric effect-driven piezoelectric soft robot (TEPSR) system is proposed, which integrates a rotary freestanding triboelectric nanogenerator (RF-TENG) to drive a soft robot comprising a piezoelectric unimorph and electrostatic footpads. Based on the natural triboelectrification, through converting mechanical energy into electricity, TENG provides a unique approach for actuation and manipulation of the soft robot. The perfect combination provides the most straightforward way for creating a self-powered system. Experimentally, under the power of RF-TENG, the soft robot reaches a maximum moving speed of 10 cm per second and a turning rate of 89.7° per second, respectively. The actuation and manipulation demonstration are intuitively accomplished by maneuvering the robot around a maze with a 71 cm track within 28 s. For autonomous feedback controls, one practical application is carrying two infrared sensors on board to realize obstacle avoidance in an unstructured environment. Moreover, a micro-camera was equipped with the soft robot to provide real-time “first-person” video streaming, enhancing its detection capability.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Shenzhen Fundamental Research Funds (No. JCYJ20220530143011026), and Science and Technology Plan projects in Sichuan Province (No. 2020YFSY0050).

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  1. Jiangfeng Lu, Zicong Miao, and Zihan Wang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Jiangfeng Lu, Zihan Wang, Ying Liu, Jihong Yin, Xiaohao Wang & Wenbo Ding

  2. Shenzhen International Graduate School, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Zicong Miao, Dekuan Zhu, Xiaohao Wang & Min Zhang

  3. State Key Laboratory of Precision Measurement Technology and Instruments, Department of Precision Instruments, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Fei Tang

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  1. Jiangfeng Lu
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  2. Zicong Miao
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Correspondence to Xiaohao Wang, Wenbo Ding or Min Zhang.

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Piezoelectric soft robot driven by mechanical energy

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Lu, J., Miao, Z., Wang, Z. et al. Piezoelectric soft robot driven by mechanical energy. Nano Res. 16, 4970–4979 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-5180-y

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