Research progress on 3D-printed hydrogel-based soft robots
LI Rong1, XU Mengping2, HUANG Anrong3, ZUO Xiaoling1
1. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Guizhou Minzu University, Guiyang 550025, China; 2. School of Physics and Mechatronic Engineering, Guizhou Minzu University, Guiyang 550025, China; 3. Guizhou Materials Industry Technology Research Institute, Guiyang 550014, China
Abstract：Soft robots, due to their good compliance and environmental adaptability, show significant application prospects in fields such as medicine and human-machine interaction. As a wet and soft material with mechanical properties and stimulus responsiveness similar to biological tissues, hydrogels have become an ideal material for the fabrication of bionic soft robots. The introduction of 3D printing technology has overcome the limitations of traditional hydrogel manufacturing methods in forming complex structures and provides a new approach for developing multi-functional soft robots. This paper focuses on 3D-printed hydrogel-based soft robots and systematically introduces research progress in fields such as bionic movement, grasping operations, and biomedical applications. This includes bionic crawling (capable of carrying five times their own weight), jumping (speed up to 20.63 μm/s), rolling, and other movement forms driven by light, magnetic fields, heat, and other methods, key technologies of bionic grippers and robots with both mobility and operational capabilities in grasping and manipulation, as well as promising applications in targeted drug delivery, in vivo monitoring, and minimally invasive therapy. Currently, there are still some challenges in this field regarding mechanical performance, driving methods, and function integration. However, with the continuous advancement of multi-material composite printing, customizable structural design, and intelligent sensing technologies, 3D-printed hydrogel-based soft robots are gradually developing into more intelligent direction and are expected to play important roles in precision medicine, complex environment detection, and human-machine interaction.
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