Paek, Jungwook
Cho, Inho
Kim, Jaeyoun
Article History
Received: 27 March 2015
Accepted: 30 March 2015
First Online: 11 June 2015
Change Date: 21 September 2015
Change Type: Update
Change Details: A correction has been published and is appended to both the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has not been fixed in the paper.
Change Date: 21 September 2015
Change Type: Erratum
Change Details: Microscale soft-robots hold great promise as safe handlers of delicate micro-objects but their wider adoption requires micro-actuators with greater efficiency and ease-of-fabrication. Here we present an elastomeric microtube-based pneumatic actuator that can be extended into a microrobotic tentacle. We establish a new, direct peeling-based technique for building long and thin, highly deformable microtubes and a semi-analytical model for their shape-engineering. Using them in combination, we amplify the microtube’s pneumatically-driven bending into multi-turn inward spiraling. The resulting micro-tentacle exhibit spiraling with the final radius as small as ~185 μm and grabbing force of ~0.78 mN, rendering itself ideal for non-damaging manipulation of soft, fragile micro-objects. This spiraling tentacle-based grabbing modality, the direct peeling-enabled elastomeric microtube fabrication technique, and the concept of microtube shape-engineering are all unprecedented and will enrich the field of soft-robotics.
Competing interests
: The authors declare no competing financial interests.