Technical Director, Functional Materials Air Force Research Laboratory, OH, United States
Soft electronics and soft robotics aim to bridge the gap between functional, high performance, electronic devices & systems and our compliant, organic, human-centric environment. It involves the development of active and responsive electronic materials, devices, and systems in a form factor that is soft, flexible, stretchable, and mechanically robust. The use of 3D printing and direct write techniques offers some distinct advantages with respect to the fabrication of soft robotic components of increasing size and complexity, as well as in the heterogeneous integration of functional components such as distributed power sources and electronic components and interconnects. In particular, the development of flexible, printable, and mechanically robust energy storage devices is a key and oftentimes limiting requisite for many of these applications due to the fact that common battery materials and manufacturing methods are often incompatible with 3D printing and soft electronics. We demonstrate control of 3D printed batteries and energy storage components using a variety of printing approaches, including aerosol jet and direct ink write, combined with a mixed solvent, phase inversion approach to deliver porosity control, high resolution feature sizes, and high temperature performance. Additionally, advances in materials and design approaches are propelling the field of soft robotics at an incredible rate, however current methods of fabrication remain cumbersome and struggle to incorporate desirable geometric complexity at large scale. By developing a 3D printable, tunable, self-healing elastomer system, we demonstrate a soft robotic manufacturing approach that combines the advantages of 3D printing (e.g. vat photopolymerization) together with modular soft robotics whereby smaller subcomponents can be printed and subsequently self-healed together to form integrated parts.
