Session: 04-25-01: Thin-Film Materials/Electronics for Advanced Biochemical and Biophysical Sensing

Paper Number: 146640

146640 - Soft Sensory Robots Based on Stimuli-Responsive Hydrogels for Electronic Implants 

Living organisms with motor and sensor units integrated seamlessly exhibit effective adaptation to dynamically changing environments. Taking inspiration from coherent integration between skeletal muscles and sensory skins in human, we present a design strategy for soft robots, primarily consisting of an electronic skin (e-skin) and an artificial muscle, that naturally couples multifunctional sensing and on-demand actuation in a soft, biocompatible platform. here, we will describe an in situ solution-based method to create the e-skin layer with a series of sensing materials (e.g., silver nanowires, reduced graphene oxide, and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate) incorporated within a polymer matrix (e.g., polyimide and polydimethylsiloxane), imitating human skin with complex receptors to perceive various stimuli. Biomimicry designs (e.g., starfish and chiral seedpods) of the soft robots enable various active motions (e.g., bending, expanding, and twisting) on demand and realize good fixation and stress-free contact with tissues. Furthermore, integration of a battery-free wireless module into these soft robots enables robotic operation and communication without tethering, thus enhancing safety and biocompatibility of the soft robots as minimally invasive implants. Demonstrated examples range from a robotic cuff enclosing around a blood vessel for precise detection of blood pressure, a robotic gripper holding onto a bladder for accurately tracking bladder volume, an ingestible robot residing inside stomach for pH sensing and on-site drug delivery, to a robotic patch wrapping onto a beating heart for quantifying cardiac contractility, temperature and applying cardiac pacing, highlighting the application versatilities and potentials of the bioinspired soft robots. Our designs of soft robots could establish a promising strategy to integrate a broad range of sensing and responsive materials, for forming highly integrated systems for medical technology and beyond.

Presenting Author: Wubin Bai University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Presenting Author Biography: Wubin Bai obtained BS degree in physics from the University of Science and Technology of China, in 2011. He received PhD degree from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2016. From 2016 to 2020, he was a postdoctoral researcher in Professor John Rogers lab at the Querrey Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics, Northwestern University. He is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Physical Science at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His lab focuses research on heterogeneous integration of soft materials and nanomaterials to design and develop devices for healthcare.

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