Carnivorous plants inspired shape-morphing slippery surfaces

Carnivorous plants,for instance,Dionaea muscipula and Nepenthes pitcher plant,inspired the innovation of advanced stimuli-responsive actuators and lubricant-infused slippery surfaces,respectively.However,hybrid bionic devices that combine the active and passive prey trapping capabilities of the two kinds of carnivorous plants remain a challenge.Herein,we report a moisture responsive shape-morphing slippery surface that enables both moisture responsive shapemorphing and oil-lubricated water repellency for simultaneous active-and passive-droplet manipulation.The moisture deformable slippery surface is prepared by creating biomimetic microstructures on graphene oxide(GO)membrane via femtosecond laser direct writing and subsequent lubricating with a thin layer of oil on the laser structured reduced GO(LRGO)surface.The integration of a lubricant-infused slippery surface with an LRGO/GO bilayer actuator endows the actuator with droplet sliding ability and promotes the moisture deformation performance due to oil-enhanced water repellency of the inert layer(LRGO).Based on the shape-morphing slippery surface,we prepared a series of proof-of-concept actuators,including a moisture-response Dionaea muscipula actuator,a smart frog tongue,and a smart flower,demonstrating their versatility for active/passive trapping,droplet manipulation,and sensing.

A Bionic Degassing Device Inspired by Gills:Application on Underwater Oil and Gas Detection

Over the past decades,membrane-based separation processes have found numerous applications in various industries.Membrane contactor is an important part of the separation of dissolved gas in the early stage of gas detection.In this paper,to improve efficiency in the detection of the dissolved gas phase in seawater,a better flat membrane contactor is proposed to achieve efficient degassing,inspired by the way fish breathe underwater and the special structure of fish gills.The bioinspired flow channel structures in the flat membrane contactor are suggested along with the distribution of internal blood vessels in the gill platelet and the feature of the gill platelet surface.Using 3D printing,the special degassing devices are manufactured,and comparative analysis of relevant flow parameters is made using different flow channels,combined with the CFD simulation.The final result showed that the proposed flow channel in the degasser achieves a better degassing effect compared with conventional flow channel when the membrane contact area is limited,which can provide good conditions for subsequent gas detection.

A Bionic Vibration Source Localization Device Inspired by the Hunting Localization Mechanism of Scorpions

The challenges we are faced with in localizing objects are the complex environments,such as tunnels,high-rise areas and underground parking lots.This paper develops a bionic vibration source localization device to estimate the direction of the object which is inspired by the unique and precise hunting localization mechanism of scorpions.The localization device uses the sensor array,which is patterned after the scorpions5 biological sensory structure,and imitates the coding mode of scorpions,sensory neurons for determination of the prey(vibration source)bearing.To verify the effectiveness of the localization device,some experiments were performed through real collected vibration signals.The Average Estimated Error(AEE)and the Relative Estimated Error(REE)of the experimental results were calculated to be 3.64°土2.44°and-1.43°±4.14°,respectively.It indicates that the device has a good performance to estimate the bearings of vibration sources at different distances and azimuths.This bionic localization device lays the foundation for the development of locating the moving object in some special conditions.

A Fully Soft Bionic Grasping Device with the Properties of Segmental Bending Shape and Automatically Adjusting Grasping Range

In this paper,we propose a fully Soft Bionic Grasping Device(SBGD),which has advantages in automatically adjusting the grasping range,variable stiffness,and controllable bending shape.This device consists of soft gripper structures and a soft bionic bracket structure.We adopt the local thin-walled design in the soft gripper structures.This design improves the grippers’bending efficiency,and imitate human finger’s segmental bending function.In addition,this work also proposes a pneumatic soft bionic bracket structure,which not only can fix grippers,but also can automatically adjust the grasping space by imitating the human adjacent fingers’opening and closing movements.Due to the above advantages,the SBGD can grasp larger or smaller objects than the regular grasping devices.Particularly,to grasp small objects reliably,we further present a new Pinching Grasping(PG)method.The great performance of the fully SBGD is verified by experiments.This work will promote innovative development of the soft bionic grasping robots,and greatly meet the applications of dexterous grasping multi-size and multi-shape objects.