Soft actuators based on smart materials and structures that can perform more diverse tasks skillfully, are being intensively sought. Despite the good progress made in the past few years, locomotion and transportation functionalities of the untethered soft-bodied devices for various natural terrains remain challenging. Inspired by a gecko crawling system, an untethered soft actuator with the abilities of picking up, transporting, and delivering objects controlled by NIR light is proposed. The soft actuator consisting of photo-responsive MWCNTs units and mushroom shaped microstructures, was fabricated by an integrative soft-lithography method with inking and imprinting processes. The integrated MWCNTs unit can convert NIR light irradiation into thermal energy, which can make the body of the soft actuator generate a strong shape deformation intrinsically in a self-contained way, leading to a combined discontinuous and continuous locomotion. Moreover, the integrated mushroom shaped microstructures can also realize grasping and manipulation of the object that was not constrained by the object's shapes and sizes, which was further addressed from experimental and theoretical perspectives. Thus, the combined use of smart materials and structures opens up new research avenues and represents a step forward toward future applications of light-driven untethered soft actuators.

中文翻译：

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基于仿生微结构阵列的光驱动无绳软致动器

基于智能材料和结构的软执行器可以巧妙地执行更多不同的任务，正在被广泛寻求。尽管在过去几年取得了良好的进展，但不受限制的软体设备在各种自然地形上的运动和运输功能仍然具有挑战性。受壁虎爬行系统的启发，提出了一种不受束缚的软致动器，具有拾取、运输和递送由 NIR 光控制的物体的能力。由光响应 MWCNTs 单元和蘑菇形微结构组成的软致动器是通过具有上墨和压印工艺的集成软光刻方法制造的。集成的 MWCNTs 单元可以将 NIR 光辐射转化为热能，这可以使软执行器的主体以自包含的方式本质上产生强烈的形状变形，从而导致不连续和连续运动的组合。此外，集成的蘑菇形微结构还可以实现对物体的抓取和操纵，不受物体形状和尺寸的限制，这从实验和理论的角度得到了进一步的解决。因此，智能材料和结构的结合使用开辟了新的研究途径，代表着朝着光驱动无绳软致动器的未来应用迈进了一步。集成的蘑菇形微结构还可以实现对物体的抓取和操纵，不受物体形状和尺寸的限制，这从实验和理论的角度得到了进一步的解决。因此，智能材料和结构的结合使用开辟了新的研究途径，代表着朝着光驱动无束缚软致动器的未来应用迈进了一步。集成的蘑菇形微结构还可以实现对物体的抓取和操纵，不受物体形状和尺寸的限制，这从实验和理论的角度得到了进一步的解决。因此，智能材料和结构的结合使用开辟了新的研究途径，代表着朝着光驱动无束缚软致动器的未来应用迈进了一步。