Sister Journal of cell: the team of Du Xuemin, deputy researcher of Shenzhen Advanced Institute has developed a software driver imitating chameleon

Recently, Du Xuemin, deputy researcher team of nano control and biomechanics research center of Shenzhen Institute of advanced technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has developed a chameleon like software driver It is the first time to report a software crawler that can interact with the environment in real time through color and shape changes at the same time The related research results were published online in the cell companion journal matter (DOI: 10.1016 / j.mat 2019.05.012) with the paper "chameleon inspired structural color actuators" Dr Wang Yunlong is the first author, and Shenzhen Advanced Institute is the only communication unit In order to survive in the complex environment, many creatures in nature have evolved a series of intelligent characteristics that can sense the changes of environment and respond in time For example, when the lower organism Mimosa is touched by the outside world, it will close the leaves in time to avoid being hurt For advanced creatures, such as chameleons, when threatened, they can not only escape, but also intimidate natural enemies or disguise themselves by changing their skin color The adaptive behavior of environment, such as biology, has inspired scientists to research and develop software drivers and robots that can sense the environment and change their performance adaptively However, due to the lack of multi-functional characteristics, such as deformation and color change, traditional software drivers or robots are difficult to perceive and respond to environmental changes autonomously like creatures in the nature (chameleon, octopus, etc.), which greatly affects human-computer interaction and the interaction effect between machines and environment In order to solve this challenge, Du Xuemin's research team realized controllable deformation of materials based on bionic Mimosa (advanced materials, 2017, 29, 1702231; advanced materials technologies, 2017, 2, 1700120; advanced functional materials, 2018, 28, 1801027) design experience, innovative bionic nature chameleon through skin color change and the structure principle of real-time interaction with the environment There are periodic micro nano particles in the skin When the skin relaxes or contracts, the distance between micro nano particles in the skin will change, and then the interference effect between the reflected light will change with the change Finally, the skin color changes visible to the naked eye The color from periodic micro nano structure is called structural color, and the periodic micro nano structure is designed to be controllable In the materials with variable and controllable motion, the real-time interaction with the environment is realized successfully The research team used the periodic micro nano particle array as the template, poured the acrylate prepolymer into the template and polymerized and solidified, then removed the micro nano particle template to obtain the polyacrylate (ptmpta) with periodic micro nano holes Due to the unique porous structure design, this kind of film can achieve rapid color change in the solvent atmosphere (only 0.2S can achieve the red shift of the reflection spectrum 37 Nm), which is because the nano porous structure can promote the adsorption and condensation of solvent vapor, and then rapidly expand the polyacrylate molecules and change the periodic micro and nano pore spacing, so as to achieve rapid color change It is found that when the film thickness is reduced to 38 μ m and the pHEMA strip is arranged on the non periodic side of the film, the film can not only change color rapidly in the solvent atmosphere, but also achieve directional deformation due to asymmetric swelling After more than 100 cycles of such change and deformation, the film still has excellent driving characteristics Furthermore, Du Xuemin's research team designed this kind of materials with fast color change and deformation into windmills and flowers When the concentration of solvent vapor changes in the environment, these windmills and flowers can show dynamic movement and color change This kind of visible color change can be used to detect the health status of the body and environmental pollution What's more interesting is that by imitating the creatures that can crawl in the nature, the asymmetric friction is designed into the driver that can move and change color, and the crawling robot that can change its color with the change of environment is successfully designed Its moving speed can reach 0.16 cm / s This kind of robot with controllable color change and motion is expected to be used in sensing, communication and robot camouflage This study is the first to report the color driver of the chameleon like soft body structure that can interact with the environment in real time It not only provides a new idea for the multi-functional design of the traditional driver, but also greatly expands the application of the chameleon like soft body robot The research work was supported by national key R & D plan (2017yfa0701303), national natural fund (21404116), Guangdong Province (2015tq01r292), Shenzhen City (jcyj20180507182051636, kqjscx20180330170232019) and other science and technology projects