Mini Actuator Chinese Researchers Develop Lego-Inspired Transforming Robots

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This robot can change its shape at will—from a vehicle to an aircraft to a submarine and back again. Developed by researchers at Tsinghua University, the Chinese news agency Xinhua is reminded of the science fiction film series "Transformers."

The team led by Professor Zhang Yihui at the Institute of Aerospace Engineering at the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing has already built a prototype of a nine-centimeter long microrobot, which, after a brief flight, transformed into a vehicle and continued to drive.

CMA Serves as the Robot's Motor

The actual invention, about which Zhang and his team have just published a paper in the scientific journal "Nature Machine Intelligence," is the heart of the robot—a "continuously morphable actuator," or CMA. These small, film-like components, which convert electricity into motion and thus function as the "muscle" or "motor" of the robot, are only a few millimeters in size.

Synergetic Design Concept

The Chinese researchers were inspired by LEGO bricks and developed a design that allows the mini actuators to be assembled into various larger shapes, they state. "In a sense," one must add, because in the language of engineers, it sounds a bit more complicated: “We present a synergetic design concept for small-scale, continuously deformable actuators (CMAs), which utilizes the precisely programmable deformation of liquid crystal elastomers for continuous shape changing and the high stiffness variation of shape memory polymers for locking geometric configurations—both controlled by electro-thermal actuation.”

Lego and Morphological Plasticity as Inspiration

The deformable actuators can be assembled into various exoskeletons like playing with LEGO, which can then autonomously switch to different shapes in response to an electronic signal. In conjunction with sensors and other components, machines with the transformative ability of a chameleon, an octopus that adapts to corals, or a grasshopper that mimics the appearance of a leaf are created.In addition to the good old LEGO bricks, which are also played with extensively in China, the biological principle of morphological plasticity, often marvelled at in many animal documentaries, has also inspired this invention.

Prototype of a Transformable Sports Car

Among other things, the research team, which also included scientists from Beihang University in Beijing, has built a nine-centimeter prototype of a "sports car" that can transform into a "car with wings" and a "transporter," as they write in their paper. However, the principle can also be utilized in bioelectronics, such as for implantable medical devices like vascular stents for regenerating narrowed blood vessels, according to the inventors.Another potential application is "interfaces with haptic feedback for use in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR)," according to Chinese industry media.

The ability of such robots to transform rotor blades into wheels for flying after a landing could also be employed in rescue missions, Professor Zhang stated to the Global Times: "In disaster recovery scenarios, it can crawl through the debris to find survivors, switch to water mode in flooded areas, and even transition to flight mode in open areas to quickly reach the intended location—something conventional robots with only one mode of movement cannot achieve."

Suitable for Hard-to-Reach Areas

While Hollywood imagined cars that suddenly transformed into battle robots armed with machine guns in the 2007 film series "Transformers," the imagination of the Chinese researchers predominantly envisions benevolent applications. At least in the public statements of the research team, there is much talk of medicine, rescue operations, and maintenance work in hard-to-reach and dangerous locations.However, one can imagine that such CMAs could also be of interest for military purposes. By then, the science fiction idea of Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg will have arrived in reality.