Soft robots go for color, camouflage
Last year, a team of researchers led by George Whitesides, the Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor, broke new engineering ground when they developed soft, silicone-based robots inspired by creatures like starfish and squid. Now, they’re working to give those robots the ability to disguise themselves. As demonstrated in an Aug. 16 paper published in Science, researchers have developed a system — again, inspired by nature — that allows the soft robots to either camouflage themselves against a background, or to make bold color displays. Such a “dynamic coloration” system could one day have a host of uses, ranging from helping doctors plan complex surgeries to acting as a visual marker to help search crews following a disaster, said Stephen Morin, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and first author of the paper. “When we began working on soft robots, we were inspired by soft organisms,...