Fast and Autonomous Soft Robots enabled by Snap-Through Instabilities

Soft robots offer a myriad of potentials due to their intrinsic compliance and adaptivity to unpredictable environments. However, most of them have limited actuation speeds and require complex control systems to maneuver various tasks. Inspired by the snap-through instabilities utilized by Venus flytrap to catch prey, the hummingbird’s beak to catch insects, and corkscrew-like stalk of Erodium seed, we combine materials intrinsic anisotropy and mechanical metastructures to program the snapping behaviors, enabling several autonomous and unprecedented soft robotic functionalities. Specifically, I will discuss the design and performance of several examples of soft robots, including a centimeter-sized, sensor-less metacap gripper that can grasp objects in 3.75 ms upon physical contact or pneumatic actuation, lobed loops made from liquid crystal elastomer fibers capable of gait-like synchronization and directed locomotion, and laminated wood enabled seed carrier with helical tails capable of soil drilling with high success rate upon exposure to water.