Soft Crawling and Flipping Robots Based on Liquid Metal-Liquid Crystal Elastomer Composites

Ling-Xin Yuan; Chang-Yue Liu; Ji-Ping Yang; Zhi-Jian Wang

doi:10.1007/s10118-025-3276-z

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Soft Crawling and Flipping Robots Based on Liquid Metal-Liquid Crystal Elastomer Composites

RESEARCH ARTICLE | Updated：2025-04-01

- Soft Crawling and Flipping Robots Based on Liquid Metal-Liquid Crystal Elastomer Composites
- Chinese Journal of Polymer Science Vol. 43, Issue 4, Pages: 588-596(2025)
- Affiliations：
  
  a.Key Laboratory of Aerospace Advanced Materials and Performance, Ministry of Education, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
  b.Tianmushan Laboratory, Hangzhou 310023, China
- Author bio：
  
  jyang@buaa.edu.cn (J.P.Y.)
  zhijianw@buaa.edu.cn (Z.J.W.)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1007/s10118-025-3276-z
  CLC：
- Received：30 October 2024，
  
  Revised：23 November 2024，
  
  Accepted：2024-11-24，
  
  Published Online：10 February 2025，
  
  Published：01 April 2025
- Accepted：
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Yuan, L. X.; Liu, C. Y.; Yang, J. P.; Wang, Z. J. Soft crawling and flipping robots based on liquid metal-liquid crystal elastomer composites. Chinese J. Polym. Sci. 2025, 43, 588–596

Ling-Xin Yuan, Chang-Yue Liu, Ji-Ping Yang, et al. Soft Crawling and Flipping Robots Based on Liquid Metal-Liquid Crystal Elastomer Composites[J]. Chinese journal of polymer science, 2025, 43(4): 588-596.
Yuan, L. X.; Liu, C. Y.; Yang, J. P.; Wang, Z. J. Soft crawling and flipping robots based on liquid metal-liquid crystal elastomer composites. Chinese J. Polym. Sci. 2025, 43, 588–596 DOI： 10.1007/s10118-025-3276-z.

Ling-Xin Yuan, Chang-Yue Liu, Ji-Ping Yang, et al. Soft Crawling and Flipping Robots Based on Liquid Metal-Liquid Crystal Elastomer Composites[J]. Chinese journal of polymer science, 2025, 43(4): 588-596. DOI： 10.1007/s10118-025-3276-z.

摘要

A liquid metal-incorporated liquid crystal elastomer (LM-LCE) composite is utilized to construct a fully 3D printed soft robot. With the application of voltage

the LM induces the contraction of the LCE layer through Joule heating. Soft robots can exhibit distinct moving behaviors

including crawling and flipping

by applying different voltages.

Abstract

Soft robots have shown great advantages with simple structure

high degree of freedom

continuous deformation

and benign human-machine interaction. In the past decades

a variety of soft robots

including crawling

jumping

swimming

and climbing robots

have been developed inspired by living creatures. However

most of the reported bionic soft robots have only a single mode of motion

which limits their practical application. Herein

we report a fully 3D printed crawling and flipping soft robot using liquid metal incorporated liquid crystal elastomer (LM-LCE) composite as the actuator. With the application of voltage

liquid metal works as the conductive Joule heating material to induce the contraction of the LCE layer. The bending angle of the LM-LCE composite actuator highly depends on the applied voltage. We further demonstrate that the soft robot can exhibit distinct moving behaviors

such as crawling or flipping

by applying different voltages. The fully 3D printed LM-LCE composite structure provides a strategy for the fast construction of soft robots with diverse motion modes.

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references

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