title: A Non-Newtonian Fluid Robot.
abstract: New types of robots inspired by biological principles of assembly, locomotion, and behavior have been recently described. In this work we explored the concept of robots that are based on more fundamental physical phenomena, such as fluid dynamics, and their potential capabilities. We report a robot made entirely of non-Newtonian fluid, driven by shear strains created by spatial patterns of audio waves. We demonstrate various robotic primitives such as locomotion and transport of metallic loads-up to 6-fold heavier than the robot itself-between points on a surface, splitting and merging, shapeshifting, percolation through gratings, and counting to 3. We also utilized interactions between multiple robots carrying chemical loads to drive a bulk chemical synthesis reaction. Free of constraints such as skin or obligatory structural integrity, fluid robots represent a radically different design that could adapt more easily to unfamiliar, hostile, or chaotic environments and carry out tasks that neither living organisms nor conventional machines are capable of.
authors.forename: Guy
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hachmon
authors.forename: Noam
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mamet
authors.forename: Sapir
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sasson
authors.forename: Tal
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Barkai
authors.forename: Nomi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hadar
authors.forename: Almogit
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Abu-Horowitz
authors.affiliation: Bar-Ilan University.
authors.forename: Ido
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Bachelet
mesh_terms: D057446:Hydrodynamics; D008124:Locomotion; D012371:Robotics
keywords: Non-Newtonian fluids; biologically inspired robotics; fluid dynamics; robot