Distributed Addressable Robotic Material via Wavelength-Division-Multiplexing

Artificial intelligence has revolutionized today’s society by expanding machines’ intellectual ability to approach humans through the creation of advanced algorithms. The physical capability of machines, however, remains basic compared to the evolved algorithms. Natural organisms have soft distributed musculatures actively coordinated in various ways to achieve different physical functions; machines are assembled from passive and rigid components with limited functions. The field of soft robotics has taken a leap to approach organisms by employing soft elastomeric materials that can either passively adapt to the environment or actively actuated by stimulus. Development so far has mainly focused on creating unit soft actuator with muscle-like performances, yet attention to distributed and addressable actuation remains elusive. I believe distributed and addressable features are fundamental concepts to expand physical intelligence, similar to the concepts of nodes and connections are foundational for artificial intelligence.The central scientific challenge to realize distributed and addressable robotic materials lies in the narrow bandwidth of conventional stimulating signals to modulate actuation; this proposal breaks this mold by exploiting the broad bandwidth of light for high-capacity robotic materials. In this ERC proposal, I will exploit wavelength-division-multiplexing of broad band optical stimulus and establish a unified platform (i.e., materials library, actuation mechanisms, integral soft optical system) to realize distributed, addressable (i.e., individually controllable actuators at ≤ millimeter scale spatial resolution) and high capacity robotic material in a small form factor, and demonstrate advanced robotic multifunctionalities via coordination of distributed actuators in two small scale soft robot examples that are not possible with other stimuli.