Mimicking human skins and molluscan, the self-powered and super-soft active robotic skin and actively perceivable and responsive soft robots are demonstrated for the first time. The robotic skins with perfect flexibility and stretchability can actively sense external stimuli (including proximity, touching, pressure, and dampness and temperature of contact materials) via self-generating electricity. The driving energy comes from a natural triboelectrification effect which involves the cooperation of contact electrification and electrostatic induction. The perfect integration of the robotic skins and soft actuators enables soft robots to perform various actively perceiving and interactive tasks. For a conscious gripper, it can actively be aware of different actions in moving an object including approaching, grabbing, lifting, lowering, and even the accident of dropping off the objects. A perceivable robot-finger can detect if a baby wet the pants. A conscious robotic crawler can even sense very subtle human physiological signals, showing their potential in biomedical uses and palpation. Moreover, it can perceive its internal muscle motions during undulating gaits. Such robots with large-area tribo-skins have been demonstrated for multiplexing sensing uses. Moreover, the actively responding signals can directly drive optoelectronic components for intuitive communication and be further processed for more sophisticated uses such as answering with sound, light, phrases, and so on. It is believed the first achievements in the actively perceiving and responsive soft robots can push the boundaries of artificial intelligences, intelligent robotics, as well as their vast related applications.

Self-powered Sensors, Electronic Skins, Soft Robots