Annelids‐Inspired Modular Design of Multi‐Modal Deformation for Magnetic Soft Robots

Abstract

Magnetic‐responsive soft materials have found extensive applications in biomedicine, robotics, and bionics. They can achieve complex deformations through structural design, magnetization patterns, and driving magnetic fields. However, due to the infinite degrees of freedom in soft materials, more efficient design methods for magnetic soft materials need to be explored. Here, a multimodal unit programming method is proposed for designing hard magnetic soft materials. The structure of the multimodal units is inspired by the segmented structure of earthworms. By altering the combination of single‐tube units, the dual‐tube units exhibit specific deformation modes. This approach simplifies the complex deformation of magnetic soft materials into the single deformations of units, enabling facile programming design of magnetic soft materials. The application of different deformation modes is demonstrated in various scenarios and scale down the units to one‐tenth of their original size for operations at different scales. This further uncovering the potential of magnetic soft materials and providing ideas for their efficient design.