Biomimetic Micro-Gel Robot Having a Soft-Rigid Hybrid Structure

In recent years, soft robots are attracting attention. The important point of fabrication of soft robot is mimicking soft-rigid hybrid structures like living organisms. Most of soft robots reported are in macro-scale, but soft microrobot has not been reported much. To realize soft microrobot, we propose micro-gel robots having a soft-rigid hybrid structure in this study. The soft parts are made from thermoresponsive gel actuator and it can be actuated by irradiating laser on it. The rigid parts are made of SU-8 that supports entire body of the micro-gel robot. This hybrid structure of the soft and rigid materials can realize complicated motion like living organisms. We succeeded in fabrication of the proposed micro-gel robot by using sacrificial layer process. Furthermore, we performed proof of concept of the actuation of the robot with laser irradiation.