Design and fabrication of next-generation biological soft robotics

The concept of robots has been around for decades now. Generally, we often think of machines made of hard and rigid parts when we think of robots. Yet, these traditional robots have limitations in terms of their flexibility, adaptivity, and biocompatibility. The field of ‘soft robotics’ has grown significantly in the recent years as well, allow for new designs using flexible polymeric and soft materials. ‘Biological soft robotics’, combining robotics and soft robotics with tissue engineering, has become a prominent paradigm for exploring and addressing the aspects not achievable by prior areas of research. The use of living tissues and cells allows these biohybrid robots to perform functions that are otherwise very difficult for conventional robotics designs. Biohybrid robots incorporate living cells with flexible materials, can potentially reproduce life-like functions, such as walking, gripping, pumping, and swimming. Owing to the biological components, biohybrid robots can exhibit unprecedented biocompatibility, adaptivity, and self-assembling and self-healing abilities. The focus of this dissertation is to discuss the progress made on the design and fabrication of next generation biohybrid robots, specifically biohybrid walkers/crawlers. Several generations of biohybrid walkers have already been demonstrated by our group in the past where tissue-engineered muscle is wrapped around a flexible 3D printed hydrogel skeleton. Under either electrical or optical stimulation, the living contractile muscle tissue cause the skeleton to deflect, resulting in net locomotion. Despite these early demonstrations of walking, there are still several aspects of biohybrid walkers that still lacks investigation, such as maneuverability, multi-directionality, and neuronal control. In this work, we developed three advanced walker platforms to address these advanced functionalities.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Bioengineering

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2023

Author dc:creator

• Wang, Jiaojiao

Contributors dc:contributor

• Bashir , Rashid
• Saif, M. Taher
• Kong, Hyunjoon
• Gazzola, Mattia

• Biohybrid Robotics
• Tissue Engineering
• Biofabrication

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2023 Jiaojiao Wang

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/120542

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F120542