STORM-BOTS trains young researchers to develop soft robotics

STORM-BOTS (Soft and Tangible Organic Responsive Materials progressing roBOTic functionS) is a Marie Sklodowska Curie European Training Network (ETN) offering local and network training activities. By covering aspects of chemistry, physics, materials science, advanced manufacturing and robotics, as well as transferable skills, it will give the researchers the opportunity to participate in pioneering research, acquiring the necessary skills for a future career in the field of liquid crystal-based responsive actuators and surfaces.

In Tampere University, the Smart Photonic Materials (SPM) research team has been examining liquid crystal-based materials since 2016. Recently they have focused on incorporating features typically associated with living organisms, such as multiresponsivity, learning, or out-of-equilibrium functions, into these materials.

This line of research is continued in the STORM-BOTS consortium, in which the SPM group trains two PhD students, Yasaman Nemati and Zixuan Deng.

“Yasaman’s goal is to devise reconfigurable liquid-crystal based robotic systems that can be activated by both light and magnetic fields, and use 4D printing for fabricating complex, multiresponsive robotic constructs. Zixuan will focus on underwater and amphibious photoactuation and nonreciprocal robotic motions, which is a prerequisite for the robots to swim efficiently,” explains Arri Priimägi, Professor of Chemistry at Tampere University and one of the Principal Investigators (PI) of STORM-BOTS project.

Soft robotics have huge potential in sensing technology

According to the researchers, soft robotics is in long term anticipated to revolutionize the fields of minimally invasive surgery, targeted drug delivery, material sampling and manipulation, responsive functional surfaces and human-machine interfaces. The potential is huge, and the STORM-BOTS consortium aims at taking one step towards reaching these goals.

”Liquid-crystal-based responsive materials provide unique features such as the material being able to sense the environment and autonomously perform complex tasks, as if the material is the machine. With the European Training Network, we will be able to approach the topical area from both applied and fundamental perspectives,” he says.

“This action dates back to the international conference we organised in Tampere in 2018, and which several PIs of the training programme participated in. I'd also like to acknowledge the role of Hao Zeng, an Academy Research Fellow, who has been in key position in our robotic activities since 2016 and who acts as a co-supervisor for both Yasaman and Zixuan,” continues Arri Priimägi.

As an ETN, STORM-BOTS project can contract pre-doctoral researchers and is obliged to include extensive mobility periods and company collaborations in its consortium. This helps trainees to develop their future professional career both in academic and non-academic fields. Based on innovative individual research projects, STORM-BOTS will provide the students with a transnational, comprehensive, highly integrated, multidisciplinary and multi-sectoral training programme.

The STORM-BOTS consortium, coordinated by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), consists of research institutions with unique scientific and technical expertise from Finland, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Spain. The program will finish in 2025.

Further information

Arri Priimägi
+358 44 515 0300
arri.priimagi [at] tuni.fi