Track genomics, neuroscience and molecular biology.
Search papers, labs, and topics across Lattice.
To resolve the fundamental trade-off between compliance and payload capacity in soft robotics, this work integrates active materials into modular 3D woven shells constructed from fundamental "woven corner" building blocks. The architecture leverages structural anisotropy to decouple high axial stiffness for load-bearing from low bending stiffness for actuation, guided by eigenvalue calculations of modal deformation. Across five prototype mobile robots, the resulting active textiles successfully locomote while supporting payloads up to 70 times their self-weight and retain full operational performance after severe structural compression.
Soft robots no longer need to sacrifice payload for compliance: these active 3D-woven textiles carry 70 times their self-weight and survive extreme crush cycles without losing functional locomotion.
The craft of weaving, where different materials are interlaced, has tremendous potential for creating active and functional systems for use in soft robots, prosthetics, wearables, exoskeletons, and more. These textile-like systems are flexible and safe for human-machine interaction; however, this inherent flexibility limits their ability to carry loads, which is essential for many robotic functions. In this work, we introduce a general framework for integrating active materials into three-dimensional (3D) woven shells to create robotic structures that combine high axial stiffness for load bearing, low bending stiffness for efficient actuation, and system-level resilience for damage tolerance. These woven robots can be modularly assembled from'woven corners', a fundamental unit of 3D woven structures. We use eigenvalue calculations to identify load bearing and actuation mechanisms of the 3D woven structures, and use that information to make five different robots capable of locomotion. We demonstrate that these 3D woven robots can locomote carrying loads 70 times their self-weight, and can maintain repeatable performance even after being subjected to extreme compression. This work is a pathway toward the design, manufacturing, and simulation of future 3D woven robotic systems where load bearing, high stiffness, active functional deformation, locomotion, and system-level resilience are all needed.