Symmetry-breaking actuation mechanism for soft robotics and active metamaterials
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In this paper, we report a novel mechanics-guided mechanism for multimodal deformation by breaking the intrinsic deformation symmetry through the shifting of the neutral axis in the material systems. The asymmetric multimodal actuation enables a plethora of novel applications ranging from functional biomimetic crawling and swimming robots with efficient dynamic performance to an active metamaterial for tunable mechanical properties
Magnetic actuation simulations are implemented through an 8-node user-defined element (UEL) subroutine from Zhao et al., JMPS, 2019.
Input files: Example 1, Example 2