Magnetically controlled kirigami surfaces move objects: No grasping needed

“We’re trying to solve two challenges here,” said Jie Yin, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University and co-corresponding author of the research paper. “The first challenge is how to move objects that cannot be picked up with a gripper, such as fragile objects or objects in confined spaces. The second challenge is how to use the far end of the magnetic field to lift and move non-magnetic objects.”

To address these challenges, researchers created a “meta-sheet” composed of elastic polymers embedded with magnetic particles. The pattern is then cut onto the sheet. The outer edges of the metapieces are connected to the rigid frame.

By moving the magnetic field underneath the metapiece, you can force parts of the metapiece to bulge upward or sink downward.

“In fact, by controlling the direction of the magnetic field, you can make the surface of the element move like a wave,” Yin said. “Adjusting the strength of the magnetic field determines how much the wave rises or falls.”

“Controlling the surface motion of the element makes it possible to move a variety of objects on the surface – whether they are droplets or a flat piece of glass,” said Joe Tracy, co-corresponding author of the paper at North Carolina State University. Professor at the University’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

“The cutout design on the yuan piece is an example of kirigami, or paper cutting,” said Chi Yinding Chi, the paper’s first author and a former doctoral student. student at North Carolina State University. “This is especially important for Yuan Piece because kirigami enhances flexibility without sacrificing the fundamental stiffness of the material itself.

“This allowed us to amplify the deformation of the material without losing mechanical strength,” said Chi, now a postdoctoral researcher at Penn State. “In addition, the element chip is very sensitive to magnetic fields, with response times as fast as two milliseconds.”

“Relatively little work has been done on how to use magnetic actuation with kirigami, and the work we’ve done here shows there’s huge potential for combining these approaches in areas ranging from soft robotics to manufacturing applications,” Tracy said. .

“We are interested in scaling down this approach so that the meta-chips can manipulate smaller objects and smaller liquids,” Chi said.

“We are also interested in how this approach can be used to create haptic technologies that may have applications in everything from games to assistive devices,” Yin said.

This work was performed under National Science Foundation Grants 2005374, 2329674, 1663416, and 1662641.