Data from: Stretchable Arduinos embedded in soft robots

To achieve real-world functionality, robots must have the ability to carry out decision-making computations. However, soft robots stretch and therefore need a solution other than rigid computers. Examples of embedding computing capacity into soft robots currently include appending rigid printed circuit boards (PCBs) to the robot, integrating soft logic gates, and exploiting material responses for material-embedded computation. Although promising, these approaches introduce limitations such as rigidity, tethers, or low logic gate density. The field of stretchable electronics has sought to solve these challenges, but a complete pipeline for direct integration of single-board computers, microcontrollers, and other complex circuitry into soft robots has remained elusive. We present a generalized method to translate any complex two-layer circuit into a soft, stretchable form. This enabled the creation of stretchable single-board microcontrollers (including Arduinos) and other commercial circuits (including Sparkfun circuits), without design simplifications. As demonstrations of the method’s utility, we embed highly stretchable (>300% strain) Arduino Pro Minis into the bodies of multiple soft robots. This makes use of otherwise inert structural material, fulfilling the promise of the stretchable electronics field to integrate state-of-the-art computational power into robust, stretchable systems during active use.

要实现现实场景中的实用功能，机器人必须具备执行决策计算的能力。然而，软体机器人会发生拉伸形变，因此无法依赖刚性计算机，亟需适配性解决方案。当前将计算能力嵌入软体机器人的方案包括：为机器人加装刚性印刷电路板（Printed Circuit Board, PCB）、集成软逻辑门，以及利用材料响应实现材料嵌入式计算。尽管此类方案颇具应用潜力，但仍存在刚性约束、外接线缆束缚以及逻辑门密度较低等局限。可拉伸电子学领域一直致力于解决上述挑战，但目前仍缺乏一套完整的流程，可将单板计算机、微控制器及其他复杂电路直接集成至软体机器人中。本研究提出一种通用方法，可将任意复杂的双层电路转换为软质可拉伸形态。该方法无需对电路设计进行简化，即可制备可拉伸单板微控制器（含Arduino开发板）及其他商用电路（含SparkFun电路）。为验证该方法的实用性，我们将可承受应变超300%的Arduino Pro Mini开发板嵌入多款软体机器人的机身中。该方案充分利用原本仅作为结构支撑的惰性结构材料，实现了可拉伸电子学领域的核心愿景：在机器人主动运行过程中，将当前最先进的计算算力集成至耐用、可拉伸的系统中。