Stenus-inspired, swift, and agile untethered insect-scale soft propulsors.

Mimicking living creatures, soft robots exhibit incomparable adaptability and various attractive new features. However, untethered insect-scale soft robots are often plagued with inferior controllability and low kinetic performance. Systematically inspired by the swift swingable abdomen, conducting canals for secretion transport, and body setae of Stenus comma, together with magnetic-induced fast-transformed postures, herein, we present a swift, agile untethered millimetre-scale soft propulsor propelling on water. The demonstrated propulsor, with a body length (BL) of 3.6 mm, achieved a recorded specific speed of ~201 BL/s and acceleration of ~8,372 BL/s2. The comprehensive kinetic performance of this propulsor surpasses those of previous ones at similar scales by several orders. Notably, we discovered momentum-transfer-induced over-biological on-demand braking (deceleration ~-5,010 BL/s2) and elucidated the underlying hydrodynamics. This work offers new insights into systematically bio-inspired artificial insect-scale soft robots, enabling them to push boundaries in performance, and potentially revolutionizing robot design, optimization, and control paradigms.

Synergistical Mechanical Design and Function Integration for Insect-Scale On-Demand Configurable Multifunctional Soft Magnetic Robots.

Meso- or micro-scale(or insect-scale) robots that are capable of realizing flexible locomotion and/or carrying on complex tasks in a remotely controllable manner hold great promise in diverse fields, such as biomedical applications, unknown environment exploration, in situ operation in confined spaces, and so on. However, the existing design and implementation approaches for such multifunctional, on-demand configurable insect-scale robots are often focusing on their actuation or locomotion, while matched design and implementation with synergistic actuation and function modules under large deformation targeting varying task/target demands are rarely investigated. In this study, through systematical investigations on synergistical mechanical design and function integration, we developed a matched design and implementation method for constructing multifunctional, on-demand configurable insect-scale soft magnetic robots. Based on such a method, we report a simple approach to construct soft magnetic robots by assembling various modules from the standard part library together. Moreover, diverse soft magnetic robots with desirable motion and function can be (re)configured. Finally, we demonstrated (re)configurable soft magnetic robots shifting into different modes to adapt and respond to varying scenarios. The customizable physical realization of complex soft robots with desirable actuation and diverse functions can pave a new way for constructing more sophisticated insect-scale soft machines that can be applied to practical applications soon.

Loss-of-Function of ATS1 Enhances Arabidopsis Salt Tolerance.

Despite the importance of lipid metabolism in various biological processes, little is known about the functionality of ATS1, a plastid glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase catalyzing the initial step of the prokaryotic glycerolipids biosynthetic pathway, in plant response to salt stress. In this study, both the loss-of-function mutants and the overexpression lines of ATS1 were analyzed for salt tolerance properties. The results showed that ATS1 overexpression lines had lower seed germination, shoot biomass, chlorophyll content, the proportion of relatively normal pod, and higher root/shoot ratio and anthocyanidin content compared with the wild type. Physiological and biochemical analysis revealed that ats1 mutants had more unsaturated fatty acids to stabilize the plasma membrane under salt damage. Additionally, less induction of three main antioxidant enzymes activity and lower MDA content in ats1 mutants indicated that mutation of the ATS1 gene could reduce the damage extent. Furthermore, the ats1 mutants maintained the K+/Na+ homeostasis by upregulating HAK5 expression to increase K+ absorption and down-regulating HKT1 expression to prevent Na+ uptake. This study suggested that the ATS1 gene negatively affects salt resistance in Arabidopsis.

Fabrication and Functionality Integration Technologies for Small-Scale Soft Robots.

Small-scale soft robots are attracting increasing interest for visible and potential applications owing to their safety and tolerance resulting from their intrinsic soft bodies or compliant structures. However, it is not sufficient that the soft bodies merely provide support or system protection. More importantly, to meet the increasing demands of controllable operation and real-time feedback in unstructured/complicated scenarios, these robots are required to perform simplex and multimodal functionalities for sensing, communicating, and interacting with external environments during large or dynamic deformation with the risk of mismatch or delamination. Challenges are encountered during fabrication and integration, including the selection and fabrication of composite/materials and structures, integration of active/passive functional modules with robust interfaces, particularly with highly deformable soft/stretchable bodies. Here, methods and strategies of fabricating structural soft bodies and integrating them with functional modules for developing small-scale soft robots are investigated. Utilizing templating, 3D printing, transfer printing, and swelling, small-scale soft robots can be endowed with several perceptual capabilities corresponding to diverse stimulus, such as light, heat, magnetism, and force. The integration of sensing and functionalities effectively enhances the agility, adaptability, and universality of soft robots when applied in various fields, including smart manufacturing, medical surgery, biomimetics, and other interdisciplinary sciences.

Stiffness Preprogrammable Soft Bending Pneumatic Actuators for High-Efficient, Conformal Operation.

Soft pneumatic actuators (SPAs) are extensively investigated due to their simple control strategies for producing sophisticated motions. However, the motions or operations of homogeneous SPAs show obvious limitations in some varying curvature interaction scenarios because of the profile mismatch of homogeneous SPAs and specific interacted objects. Herein, a stiffness preprogrammable soft pneumatic actuator (SPSPA) is proposed by discretely presetting gradient geometrical or materials distributions. Through finite element analysis and experimental validation, a mathematical model of behavior prediction of SPSPA was built to relate the geometrical parameters/materials with its morphing behaviors, making it possible to reversely obtain designed parameters. This design strategy enables conformal and efficient interaction in some curvature varying scenarios. Specifically, higher effective contact area, perimeter utilization ratio, and conformal ability can be obtained while interacting with those inhomogeneous curvature objects, for example, more than 434.7% improvement in contact area rates and 12.5% enhancement in perimeter utilization ratios toward a typical equilateral triangle object. Further, a serial of SPSPAs that have conformal grasping/interactive capability, better contact sensing behaviors were demonstrated. For example, an SPSPA and an SPSP robot were demonstrated, which showed better kinetic, kinematic characterizations and sensing capability compared with the homogeneous one while coming across varying curvature objects. Moreover, underactuated finger rehabilitation SPSPAs were demonstrated with customized profiles and coupled joint motion. This customized scheme can be potentially used in those specific-purposed, single, and repetitive application scenarios where varying curvature, conformal and efficient interaction are needed.

Anisotropic Shear-Sensitive Tactile Sensors with Programmable Elastomers for Robotic Manipulations.

High-performance tactile sensors are urgently demanded in various intensive interactive scenarios, e.g., texture detection, robotic interaction with fragile objects, and motion direction recognition, where dynamic conditions are involved with complex tangential forces or vibrations. Although many microstructured/porous sensors can perceive tangential forces, their isotropic structures that lack programmability lead them to be incapable of sensing the direction of forces and restrain their tunability for complex situations, e.g., a wide sensing range for large forces and high sensitivity for gentle forces. Here, by tuning the programmable microstructures (microcolumns and microfilms) of an elastomeric active layer, we propose a simple principle to flexibly tune the shear sensitivity of an anisotropic porous sensor and bring a 10-fold distinction of anisotropy with a wide range of shear sensitivity (from 0.07 to 0.7 N-1). The fabricated tactile sensors can be used in various robotic manipulations resiliently, for instance, morphology and topology identification of curved surfaces, delicate interactive manipulations, and recognizing the relative motion of two contacting objects. Our work introduces a simple and effective strategy for tailoring flexible shear-sensitive sensors for diverse dexterous robotic manipulations during complex interactions.

Programmable and reprocessable multifunctional elastomeric sheets for soft origami robots.

Tunable, soft, and multifunctional robots are contributing to developments in medical and rehabilitative robotics, human-machine interaction, and intelligent home technology. A key aspect of soft robot fabrication is the ability to use flexible and efficient schemes to enable the seamless and simultaneous integration of configurable structures. Here, we report a strategy for programming design features and functions in elastomeric surfaces. We selectively modified these elastomeric surfaces via laser scanning and then penetrated them with an active particle-infused solvent to enable controllable deformation, folding, and functionality integration. The functionality of the elastomers can be erased by a solvent retreatment and reprocessed by repeating the active particle infusion process. We established a platform technique for fabricating programmable and reprocessable elastomeric sheets by varying detailed morphology patterns and active particles. We used this technique to produce functional soft ferromagnetic origami robots with seamlessly integrated structures and various active functions, such as robots that mimic flowers with petals bent at different angles and with different curvatures, low-friction swimming robots, multimode locomotion carriers with gradient-stiffness claws for protecting and delivering objects, and frog-like robots with adaptive switchable coloration that responds to external thermal and optical stimuli.

Anxiety and depression among patients with different types of vestibular peripheral vertigo.

Numerous studies have been published on comorbid anxiety and depression in patients with vertigo. However, very few studies have separately described and analyzed anxiety or depression in patients with different types of vestibular peripheral vertigo. The present study investigated anxiety and depression among patients with 4 different types of peripheral vertigo. A total of 129 patients with 4 types of peripheral vertigo, namely, benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV, n = 49), migrainous vertigo (MV, n = 37), Menière disease (MD, n = 28), and vestibular neuritis (VN, n = 15), were included in the present study. Otological and neurootological examinations were carefully performed, and self-rating anxiety scale and self-rating depression scale were used to evaluate anxiety and depression. Patients were divided into 2 groups, according to the vestibular function: normal and abnormal vestibular function. There was no significant difference in the risk of anxiety/depression between these 2 groups. However, for patients with the 4 different vertigo types, the prevalence of anxiety (MV = 45.9%, MD = 50%) and depression (MV = 27%, MD = 28.6%) was significantly higher in the patients with MV or MD than those with BPPV or VN (P < 0.05). Vestibular function is not significantly associated with the risk of anxiety/depression. Anxiety/depression is more common in patients with MV or MD than those with BPPV or VN. This may be due to the different mechanisms involved in these 4 types of vertigo, as well as differences in the prevention and self-control of the patients against the vertigo.

[Comparison of anxiety and depression state among patients with different type of vestibular peripheral vertigo].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate and analyze the status of anxiety and depression among patients with four types of peripheral vertigo. METHOD: The clinical data of patients with one of the four types of peripheral vertigo, namely benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV), vestibular migraine (VM), Menière's disease (MD), and vestibular neuritis (VN), were collected. Thorough otological and neuro-otological examinations were performed on these patients, and their status of anxiety and depression were assessed using self-rating anxiety scale (SAS) and self-rating depression scale (SDS). RESULT: A total of 129 patients with one of the four types of peripheral vertigo(49 cases of BPPV, 37 cases of VM, 28 cases of MD and 15 cases of VN) were included in the study. The scores of SAS and SDS were higher in the patients with VM or MD than those with BPPV or VN (P < 0.05), and the incidence of anxiety (VM = 45.9% MD = 50.0%) and depression (VM = 27.0% MD = 28.6%) were higher in the patients with VM or MD than those with BPPV or VN (P < 0.05). Paired comparisons showed the differences between the incidences of BPPV and MV groups, BPPV and MD groups, and MD and VN groups were statistically significant (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Among patients with different types of peripheral vertigo, anxiety/depression is more common in patients with VM or MD. This may be due to the different mechanisms involved in different types of vertigo, as well as differences in the prevention and self-control of the patients against the vertigo.