New Method May Lead to Hydrogel Based Soft Robots

North Carolina State University researchers have developed a method that creates devices from hydrogel, a water based poylmer material. The resulting device can be patterned, folded and used to manipulate objects. The research paper, "Reversible Patterning and Actuation of Hydrogels By Electrically Assisted Ionoprinting," is published in the online journal Nature Communications.

Hydrogels are polymers that are highly absorbent that can shrink and expand depending on outside conditions like humidity, pH levels, and temperature. Consumer products use hydrogels in contact lenses for its flexibility, baby diapers for its absorbency, and also in adhesives. Hydrogels are most known for its use as a drug delivery system. Hydrogel based capsules are a popular fixture in pharmacies around the world.

Previously, hydrogels were developed to react a certain way given certain specific conditions. But with the recent discovery, devices can now be developed that can be actively controlled in real time rather than being just reactive. By being able to control the structure and movement of hydrogel, researchers can create devices for use not only for biomedical purposes but also in the field of robotics.

These new devices can be used in the production of soft robots. Soft robots are robots that combine organic chemistry, soft materials science and robotics. These are different from industrial robots in that instead of using gears and motors for movement, soft robots use other means such as chemical reactions or compressed air to move. Soft robots are also made of other materials like rubber and silicon.

MIT News: MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science - A Source for Big Data Through bigdata@CSAIL

With the recent launch of MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, MIT News examines research with the potential to reshape medicine and health care through new scientific knowledge, novel treatments and products, better management of medical data, and improvements in health-care delivery.

At the end of 2012, the National Public Radio show Fresh Air featured a segment in which its linguistics commentator argued that “big data” should be the word of the year. The term refers not only to the deluge of data produced by the proliferation of Internet-connected, sensor-studded portable devices but also to innovative techniques for analyzing that data; and big data has received a good deal of credit for Barack Obama’s victory in the last presidential election.