Transparent Magnetic Soft Millirobot Actuated By Micro-Node Array

Magnetic soft millirobots have attracted emerging interest in many fields owing to their superiorities in effective and remote controllable actuation by a magnetic field. However, limited to the embedded magnetic particles, magnetic soft robots usually exhibit dark to black colors, leading to the sheltering of the environment and target during locomotion, manipulation, and transportation. Here, a method of constructing a transparent magnetic millirobot with an actuatable micro-node array is presented. Owing to the micro-node design and high-transparency body materials, the robot can achieve a high transmittance of approximate to 80%. The robot possesses remote-controllable locomotion and obstacle-crossing capabilities, such as crawling through a limited area (height: 600 mu m) and crossing over an obstacle (height: 1 mm) that is about five times higher than itself. Moreover, the robot demonstrates optical transparent property against the changing environment, such as chessboard and rainbow-colored backgrounds. Lastly, the locomotion and camouflage capability of the robot are demonstrated on sand, where the robot moves 23 mm in 59 s on the irregular sandy surface. This design strategy can be broadened to a wide range of fields, including but not limited to robots for battlefield, biomedical treatment, and environmental reconnaissance, and will benefit the development of the next generation of smart robots.