Experimental data of LCE-integrated soft everting robots

Soft everting robots move by extending, or growing, their body from the tip via eversion, enabling minimal interaction with the environment. They can traverse complex environments by changing the growth direction via integrated steering mechanisms. However, it is challenging to miniaturize existing steering mechanisms and to achieve multiple bends, while remaining fully-soft. In this work, we present an approach to create millimeter-scale, steerable, and fully-soft everting robots by functionalizing the robot skin with liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) actuators. We demonstrate the ability of small-scale (< 5 mm diameter) everting robots to achieve large bending angles (> 100◦) at multiple points along their length, and study the effects of the robot pressure and actuator temperature as control inputs. We demonstrate the potential of our approach for enabling practical applications, such as surgical procedures and inspection tasks. Our results highlight the advantages of functionalized robot skin and represent a step toward small, steerable, and fully-soft everting robots for applications in delicate and constrained environments.