Biomimicry is the art of robotics mimicking systems in nature and could potentially include evolutionarily optimized skin and nervous systems of living organisms. This potential artificial skin application for soft polymeric gel sensors may be used in damaged skin replacement, prosthetics, or other soft robotic applications. Characterization of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) sensing in static planar orientations has been performed in prior studies. However, further testing is required to understand this mechanoelectrical transduction and its dependence on surface orientation and loading condition. PVC gel sensing capabilities under varying surface morphologies and loading conditions are unknown. This characterization is critical because it will determine practical operating conditions and applications for PVC gel sensors. The goal of this study is to analyze the electrical response of PVC gels in planar and curved surface orientations at static and dynamic loading conditions with novel elect

Similar to the shells of many crustaceans, future textile will be equipped with a broad range of functionalities such as self-cleaning, antibacterial, anti-odor, etc., ideally simultaneously. This presentation will describe our strategy to functionalize textiles (denim jeans), with the incorporation of TiO2 and ZnO by applying the vapor phase infiltration (VPI) technique. We show that the VPI process can have a very positive impact on the wetting, UV blocking and antimicrobial properties of the textile. Furthermore, the durability of the hybrid fabrics has been investigated by simulated washing processes to demonstrate the applicability of the approach in real life.

Thermo-mechanical actuators such as twisted and coiled polymer (TCP) actuators and shape memory alloys are flexible actuators similar to biological muscles. These new materials opened up unprecedented opportunities for soft robotics applications. However, these actuators have been long criticized for their slow response and low efficiency. Although some researchers have improved on these challenges through active cooling and high pulse actuation, the results are far from the expectation of the scientific community. To address of these issues and auxiliary issues caused by these limitations are addressed in this article with a proposed solution through a 3D-printed scalable mechanical transmission system.

We develop a bio-inspired ultracompact dispersion technology integrated into smartphone cameras for simultaneous imaging and spectroscopy in a mobile platform.

The talk will outline novel bioinspired approaches based on structural color in the visible to infrared spectral ranges. With low-cost and eco-friendly techniques, the ultra-low weight smart coating will maintain temperature of painted surfaces reducing energy wastages. Applications range from buildings, automobiles, cloths, cosmetics, plastics, printer ink, to adaptive camouflages to name a few.

In synthesis, biology often relies on hierarchical structures to bridge scales and facilitate transport, leading to scalable, robust, and additive processes. Another feature is nano-confinement with carefully balanced forces at multiple scales, creating structured environments to produce size and shape-controlled materials. Furthermore, nature employs dynamics to form synergistic and adaptable synthetic machinery to make complex structured materials. This presentation will address recent progress in bio-inspired nanomanufacturing using scalable, microreactor-assisted nanomaterial printing to fabricate nanostructured materials and the functional applications of these nanostructured materials.

An insect's response time to visual stimuli generally surpasses that of current autonomous machine vision systems with more complicated hardware. One hypothesis that we have considered is that insects’ extraordinary flight and navigation capabilities involve optical preprocessing from self-assembled, diffractive corneal optics. This paradigm parallels recent research in hybrid computer vision, which is of interest due to the growing computational costs of deep-learning-based image processing. Here, we summarize our research and motivation on fly-inspired diffractive optical encoding with conducting-polymer self-assembled polarimetric thin-film encoders. We emphasize the role of defects and vortex phase encoding and analyze the dipole scattering efficiency from nanofibrous structures.

This conference presentation was prepared for the Bioinspiration, Biomimetics, and Bioreplication XIII conference at SPIE Smart Structures + Nondestructive Evaluation, 2023.

Glycol-lignin (GL), which is obtained from natural conifers by the treatment with poly(ethylene glycol), is expected as a novel material alternating petroleum resources. Composite materials which are prepared by the hybridization of the GL and various engineering plastics such as polyacetals or polyimides show high thermostability and excellent mechanical strength. Resinification of the GL was performed by the polymerization with dicarboxylic acids. Polymerization of an unsaturated polyesters (UP) was inhibited in the presence of GL, because the GL has antioxidizing properties owing to its polyphenolic structure. However, the polymerization of UP was successfully performed by using a capped-GL.