2016/03/16 by Ellen Henke, E. -F. Markus Henke, Samuel Schlatter +4
Computer Science · Engineering · #Advanced Materials and Mechanics #Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials #Dielectric materials and actuators #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Robotics (cs.RO) #cs.RO
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1603.05599
arxiv created 2016/03/16 · openalex publication_date 2016/03/16 · arxiv updated 2016/03/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Biomimetic entirely soft robots with animal-like behavior and integrated artificial nervous systems will open up totally new perspectives and applications. However, until now all presented studies on soft robots were limited to partly soft designs, since all designs at least needed conventional, stiff, electronics, to sense, process signals and activate actuators. We present the first soft robot with integrated artificial nervous system entirely made of dielectric elastomers - and without any conventional stiff electronic parts. Supplied with only one external DC voltage, the robot autonomously generates all signals necessary to drive its actuators, and translates an in-plane electromechanical oscillation into a crawling locomotion movement. Thereby, all functional parts are made of polymer materials and carbon. Besides the basic design of the world's first entirely soft robot we present prospects to control general behavior of such robots.