Morphable three-dimensional electronic mesofliers capable of on-demand unfolding

Development of miniaturized three-dimensional(3 D)fliers with integrated functional components has important implications to a diverse range of engineering areas.Among the various active and passive miniaturized 3 D fliers reported previously,a class of 3 D electronic fliers inspired by wind-dispersed seeds show promising potentials,owing to the lightweight and noiseless features,aside from the stable rotational fall associated with a low falling velocity.While on-demand shape-morphing capabilities are essential for those 3 D electronic fliers,the realization of such miniaturized systems remains very challenging,due to the lack of fast-response 3 D actuators that can be seamlessly integrated with 3 D electronic fliers.Here we develop a type of morphable3 D mesofliers with shape memory polymer(SMP)-based electrothermal actuators,capable of large degree of actuation deformations,with a fast response(e.g.,~1 s).Integration of functional components,including sensors,controllers,and chip batteries,enables development of intelligent 3 D mesoflier systems that can achieve the on-demand unfolding,triggered by the processing of real-time sensed information(e.g.,acceleration and humidity data).Such intelligent electronic mesofliers are capable of both the low-air-drag rising and the low-velocity falling,and thereby,can be used to measure the humidity fields in a wide 3 D space by simple hand throwing,according to our demonstrations.The developed electronic mesofliers can also be integrated with other types of physical/chemical sensors for uses in different application scenarios.