Self-sensing cellulose structures with design-controlled stiffness

Robots are often used for sensing and sampling in natural environments. Within this area, soft robots have become increasingly popular for these tasks because their mechanical compliance makes them safer to interact with. Unfortunately, if these robots break while working in vulnerable environments, they create potentially hazardous waste. Consequently, the development of compliant, biodegradable structures for soft, eco-robots is a relevant research area that we explore here. Cellulose is one of the most abundant biodegradable materials on earth, but it is naturally very stiff, which makes it difficult to use in soft robots. Here, we look at both biologically and kirigami inspired structures that can be used to reduce the stiffness of cellulose based parts for soft robots up to a factor of 19 000. To demonstrate this, we build a compliant force and displacement sensing structure from microfibrillated cellulose. We also describe a novel manufacturing technique for these structures, provide mechanical models that allow designers to specify their stiffness, and conclude with a description of our structure's performance

Opportunities and challenges for monitoring terrestrial biodiversity in the robotics age

\ua9 The Author(s) 2025.With biodiversity loss escalating globally, a step change is needed in our capacity to accurately monitor species populations across ecosystems. Robotic and autonomous systems (RAS) offer technological solutions that may substantially advance terrestrial biodiversity monitoring, but this potential is yet to be considered systematically. We used a modified Delphi technique to synthesize knowledge from 98 biodiversity experts and 31 RAS experts, who identified the major methodological barriers that currently hinder monitoring, and explored the opportunities and challenges that RAS offer in overcoming these barriers. Biodiversity experts identified four barrier categories: site access, species and individual identification, data handling and storage, and power and network availability. Robotics experts highlighted technologies that could overcome these barriers and identified the developments needed to facilitate RAS-based autonomous biodiversity monitoring. Some existing RAS could be optimized relatively easily to survey species but would require development to be suitable for monitoring of more ‘difficult’ taxa and robust enough to work under uncontrolled conditions within ecosystems. Other nascent technologies (for instance, new sensors and biodegradable robots) need accelerated research. Overall, it was felt that RAS could lead to major progress in monitoring of terrestrial biodiversity by supplementing rather than supplanting existing methods. Transdisciplinarity needs to be fostered between biodiversity and RAS experts so that future ideas and technologies can be codeveloped effectively

Opportunities and challenges for monitoring terrestrial biodiversity in the robotics age

With biodiversity loss escalating globally, a step change is needed in our capacity to accurately monitor species populations across ecosystems. Robotic and autonomous systems (RAS) offer technological solutions that may substantially advance terrestrial biodiversity monitoring, but this potential is yet to be considered systematically. We used a modified Delphi technique to synthesize knowledge from 98 biodiversity experts and 31 RAS experts, who identified the major methodological barriers that currently hinder monitoring, and explored the opportunities and challenges that RAS offer in overcoming these barriers. Biodiversity experts identified four barrier categories: site access, species and individual identification, data handling and storage, and power and network availability. Robotics experts highlighted technologies that could overcome these barriers and identified the developments needed to facilitate RAS-based autonomous biodiversity monitoring. Some existing RAS could be optimized relatively easily to survey species but would require development to be suitable for monitoring of more ‘difficult’ taxa and robust enough to work under uncontrolled conditions within ecosystems. Other nascent technologies (for instance, new sensors and biodegradable robots) need accelerated research. Overall, it was felt that RAS could lead to major progress in monitoring of terrestrial biodiversity by supplementing rather than supplanting existing methods. Transdisciplinarity needs to be fostered between biodiversity and RAS experts so that future ideas and technologies can be codeveloped effectively

Opportunities and challenges for monitoring terrestrial biodiversity in the robotics age

With biodiversity loss escalating globally, a step-change is needed in our capacity to accurately monitor species populations across ecosystems. Robotic and autonomous systems (RAS) offer technological solutions that may significantly advance terrestrial biodiversity monitoring, but this potential is yet to be considered systematically. We used a modified Delphi technique to synthesise knowledge from 98 biodiversity and 31 RAS experts who identified the major methodological barriers that currently hinder monitoring, and explored the opportunities and challenges that RAS offer to overcome these barriers. Biodiversity experts identified four barrier categories: site access, species/individual identification, data handling/storage and power/network availability. Robotics experts highlighted technologies that could overcome these barriers and identified the developments needed to facilitate RAS-based autonomous biodiversity monitoring. Some existing RAS could be optimised relatively easily to survey species, but would require development to monitor more ‘difficult’ taxa and be robust enough to work in uncontrolled conditions within ecosystems. Other nascent technologies (e.g., novel sensors, biodegradable robots) need accelerated research. Overall, it was felt that RAS could lead to major progress in monitoring terrestrial biodiversity by supplementing, rather than supplanting, existing methods. Transdisciplinarity needs to be fostered between biodiversity and RAS experts, so future ideas and technologies can be co-developed effectively

Opportunities and challenges for monitoring terrestrial biodiversity in the robotics age

With biodiversity loss escalating globally, a step change is needed in our capacity to accurately monitor species populations across ecosystems. Robotic and autonomous systems (RAS) offer technological solutions that may substantially advance terrestrial biodiversity monitoring, but this potential is yet to be considered systematically. We used a modified Delphi technique to synthesize knowledge from 98 biodiversity experts and 31 RAS experts, who identified the major methodological barriers that currently hinder monitoring, and explored the opportunities and challenges that RAS offer in overcoming these barriers. Biodiversity experts identified four barrier categories: site access, species and individual identification, data handling and storage, and power and network availability. Robotics experts highlighted technologies that could overcome these barriers and identified the developments needed to facilitate RAS-based autonomous biodiversity monitoring. Some existing RAS could be optimized relatively easily to survey species but would require development to be suitable for monitoring of more ‘difficult’ taxa and robust enough to work under uncontrolled conditions within ecosystems. Other nascent technologies (for instance, new sensors and biodegradable robots) need accelerated research. Overall, it was felt that RAS could lead to major progress in monitoring of terrestrial biodiversity by supplementing rather than supplanting existing methods. Transdisciplinarity needs to be fostered between biodiversity and RAS experts so that future ideas and technologies can be codeveloped effectively

Skills for physical artificial intelligence

Synthesizing robots via physical artificial intelligence is a multidisciplinary challenge for future robotics research. An education methodology is needed for researchers to develop a combination of skills in physical artificial intelligence

Effects of ionic liquids and dual curing on vat photopolymerization process and properties of 3d-printed ionogels

Ionic liquids (ILs) can facilitate photopolymerization reactions involved in the fabrication of ionogels (IGs). In this study, ILs were immobilized by 3D printing through polymerization of vinyl-monomers in their medium. The effect of ILs on the vat photopolymerization (VP) process was studied. Multiple IL-compatible photopolymer formulations were developed by using EmimBF4, BmimBF4, OmimBF4, and EmimTFSI ionic liquids and photocurable N-vinylpyrrolidone (NVP) and triethylene glycol dimethacrylate (TEGDMA) monomers. The photoinduced radical copolymerization of NVP with TEGDMA was studied using a combination of photo-DSC, Jacobs working curves and FTIR methods. The analysis revealed a dichotomy of IL-based VP as the addition of ILs led to a significant acceleration of polymerization and an increase in the critical exposure energy due to a higher conversion degree necessary for the gelation. Moreover, the Jacobs working curves showed that penetration depth dramatically changed with IL type. Based on these results, overcuring time was calculated and applied in the VP process to ensure that enough monomers were converted in each 3d-printed layer to prevent interlayer cracking. Furthermore, the dual curing approach was applied to achieve the highest possible conversion by adding a thermal initiator (AIBN). Dual curing increased the mechanical properties of ionogels but led to a reduced ionic conductivity due to an inhibition of IL's mobility. In addition, this study found IL compositions for ionogels demonstrating no shrinkage after photopolymerization and post-curing. We suggest that the outcomes of the present study created a platform for fabricating high-resolution 3d-printed nonvolatile and nonflammable ionogels.LS