Researchers have succeeded in producing a prototype programmable material that could one day lead to robots made of liquid metal
The Interact Lab of the University of Sussex and the FIT Lab of Swansea University recently presented their programmable liquid matter: a class of materials where the deformability is intrinsic in their molecular structure and/or their physical state.
Liquid metals are an extremely promising class of materials for deformable applications: their unique properties — such as voltage controlled surface tension, high liquid-state conductivity and liquid-solid phase transition at room temperature — open new possibilities in soft robotics and shape changing displays.
The joint team explored programming liquid matter for customisable and interactive animation with a dynamic electric field. They implemented a novel prototype that can alter the shape of liquid metal by moving it along a desired path.
By creating a hardware framework and a graphical user interface to promote interactive visualizations, the researcher demonstrated novel manipulation of liquid metal. The vision going forward is to expand the work on shape changing, programmable material and consider its use as a method for providing a programmable electric circuit.
In their paper the team demonstrated a method for the dynamic 2D transformation of liquid matter and unique organic animations based on spatio-temporally controlled electric fields.
In particular they deployed a droplet of liquid metal (Gallium indium eutectic alloy) in a 7x7 electrode array prototype system, featuring an integrated image tracking system and a simple GUI.
Exploiting the strong dependence of EGaIn's surface tension on external electric voltages, the team managed to control multiple electrodes dynamically to manipulate the liquid metal into a fine-grained desired shape.
Taking advantage of the high conductivity of liquid metals, the researchers introduce a shape changing, reconfigurable smart circuit as an example of unique applications.
Video credit: Columbia Pictures - Liquid metal robot from Terminator 2: Judgement Day