VIDEO: Researchers create a 'shape-shifting' robot that can liquefy and regenerate

 Researchers have created a small robot that can melt and reconstruct into its original shape. This trait allows it to do tasks in limited spaces and even escape from prison. The crew put its mobility and shape-shifting abilities to the test, and the results were published in the journal Matter.

While a melting, shape-shifting robot may seem like something out of a science fiction film, the team was really inspired by the sea cucumber, a marine animal. According to Carnegie Mellon University senior author and mechanical engineer Carmel Majidi, who spoke with McKenzie Prillaman of Science News, sea cucumbers "can extremely quickly and reversibly adjust their stiffness."

"Our goal as engineers is to replicate that in soft materials systems."

Traditional robots are rigid and bulky, making them difficult to manoeuvre in small spaces. Soft robots are more adaptable, but they are often weaker and more difficult to control. So the team created a material that could flip between liquid and solid phases in order to build a robust and flexible substance.

It’s not exactly the T-1000—yet. But researchers have created a liquid metal robot that can mimic the shape-shifting abilities of the silvery, morphing killer robot in Terminator 2: Judgement Day. https://t.co/tyNW1CPLCy pic.twitter.com/WV5NIsQQHn

— News from Science (@NewsfromScience) January 25, 2023

According to Smithsonian Magazine, the researchers accomplished this feat by using a robot made of gallium, a metal with a low melting temperature of 86 degrees Fahrenheit, and magnetic particles. These particles enable scientists to use magnets to instruct robots to move, melt, or stretch.

The magnetic particles also lead the robots to react to a changing magnetic field, which is referred to as an alternating magnetic field. This causes the metal to generate electricity, which raises the temperature of the metal. According to Majidi, utilising this magnetic field "you may heat up the material and generate the phase shift by induction." As a result of the cooling, the material solidifies once more. The innovation is referred to as a "magnetoactive solid-liquid phase transitional machine" by the study team.

The new robot was able to climb walls, solder a circuit board, jump up to 20 times its body length, and escape from a simulated prison in a series of tests. According to the study, in its solid state, it could support an item approximately 30 times its own weight.

This technique, according to experts, might have uses in the biomedical business. They used the robot to extract a ball from a simulated human stomach. The solid robot was able to approach the ball swiftly, liquefy, encircle it, coalesce back into a solid, and ultimately move the thing out of the model. Although the researchers used gallium in this experiment, the real temperature of a human stomach is around 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which is greater than the melting point of the metal. According to the authors, adding more metals to the material may raise its melting point.

"It's an interesting tool," says Nicholas Bira, a Harvard University robotics researcher who was not involved in the experiment.