/PRNewswire/ The fluidics for preclinical, life science research, and clinical applications market will be driven by factors such as rise in prevalence of.
/PRNewswire/ The fluidics for preclinical, life science research, and clinical applications market will be driven by factors such as rise in prevalence of.
Abstract
The emergence of soft robots has presented new challenges associated with controlling the underlying fluidics of such systems. Here, we introduce a strategy for additively manufacturing unified soft robots comprising fully integrated fluidic circuitry in a single print run via PolyJet three-dimensional (3D) printing. We explore the efficacy of this approach for soft robots designed to leverage novel 3D fluidic circuit elements e.g., fluidic diodes, “normally closed” transistors, and “normally open” transistors with geometrically tunable pressure-gain functionalities to operate in response to fluidic analogs of conventional electronic signals, including constant-flow [“direct current (DC)”], “alternating current (AC)”–inspired, and preprogrammed aperiodic (“variable current”) input conditions. By enabling fully integrated soft robotic entities (composed of soft actuators, fluidic circuitry, and body features) to be rapidly disseminated, modified on dema