Energetically Autonomous Soft Robots: An Embodied Actuation Strategy by Liquid Metal Metabolism

The level of energy autonomy in untethered robots is often physically limited by their onboard or remote energy supply, which often lacks the synergy and efficiency in living organisms. Embodied energy design emerges as a biologically inspired paradigm for energetically autonomous robots, where the energy source and actuator mechanisms are directly integrated into the materials and architecture for efficiency and functionality. In this work, we introduce an energy-embodied soft actuation strategy that is inspired by the metabolic processes in natural organisms. We present a self-powered, chemo-pneumatic actuation mechanism powered by a metabolic-like decomposition process of a gel-encapsulated liquid metal composite. We demonstrate the self-regulating locomotion capability of an energetically autonomous soft robotic crawler with this energy-actuation coupling.