Thermal Camouflaging MXene Robotic Skin with Bio-Inspired Stimulus Sensation and Wireless Communication

Kerui Li*, Zhipeng Li, Ze Xiong, Yingxi Wang, Haitao Yang, Wenxin Xu, Lin Jing, Meng Ding, Jian Zhu, John S. Ho, Po Yen Chen

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

55 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Cephalopod skin, which is capable of dynamic optical camouflage, environmental perceptions, and herd communication, has long been a source of bio-inspiration for developing soft robots with incredible optoelectronic functions. Yet, challenges still exist in designing a stretchable and compliant robotic skin with high-level functional integration for soft robots with infinite degrees of freedom. Herein, an emerging 2D material, Ti3C2Tx MXene, and an interfacial engineering strategy are adopted to fabricate the soft robotic skin with cephalopod skin-inspired multifunctionality. By harnessing interfacial instability, the MXene robotic skin with reconfigurable microtextures demonstrates tunable infrared emission (0.30–0.80), enabling dynamic thermal camouflage for soft robots. Benefiting from the intrinsic Seebeck effect, crack propagation behaviors as well as high electrical conductivity, the MXene robotic skins are tightly integrated with thermal/strain sensation capabilities and can serve as a deformable antenna for wireless communication. Without additional electronics installed, the soft robots wearing the conformal MXene skins perform adaptive thermal camouflage based on the thermoelectric feedback in response to environmental temperature changes. With built-in strain sensing and wireless communication capabilities, the soft robot can record its locomotion routes and wirelessly transmit the key information to the following soft robot to keep both in disguise under thermographic cameras.

Original languageEnglish
Article number2110534
JournalAdvanced Functional Materials
Volume32
Issue number23
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 3 Jun 2022
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Ti C T MXene
  • adaptive thermal camouflage
  • multifunctional integration
  • reconfigurable microtextures
  • soft robots

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