Hemma Philamore

Abstract Fluidic soft actuators enable safe, adaptable human-machine applications, but suffer from shortcomings of portability and autonomy. Herein, we introduce a liquid metal droplet based fluidic soft pump, which is lightweight (0.2 g) and compact (0.086 cm³), delivering specific pressure (18.6 − 34.88 GPa m⁻³) and specific flow rate (38.4 − 49.29 kL min⁻¹ m⁻³), surpassing existing soft and conventional pumps, and operating at low voltage ( < 1 V).

1 Introduction The manipulation of droplets is central to many applications, including advanced materials, drug delivery, bioassays, and chemical reactions,[1, 2] where external fields including electric, magnetic, acoustic, and light enable precise droplet control.[2-5] However, as input energies increase, the control and scaling of such system becomes challenging as critical material instabilities are reached, and droplets catastrophically break up.

Polluted water can at times make swimming in the sea or a pool risky, on the other hand aquatic organisms such as water boatman need the nutrients in dirty water to feed on. Taking inspiration from water beetles and other swimming insects, academics at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) have developed the Row-bot, a robot that thrives in dirty water. The Row-bot mimics the way that the water boatman moves and the way that it feeds on rich organic matter in the dirty water it swims in.