01765nas a2200217   4500008004100000022001400041245005300055210005300108300001400161490000700175520110000182653002201282653002501304653002801329653003001357653002701387100002201414700001801436700002201454856007101476       2015                        eng d  a0022-509600aLiquid crystal elastomer strips as soft crawlers0 aLiquid crystal elastomer strips as soft crawlers  a254 - 2720 v843 a<p>In this paper, we speculate on a possible application of Liquid Crystal Elastomers to the field of soft robotics. In particular, we study a concept for limbless locomotion that is amenable to miniaturisation. For this purpose, we formulate and solve the evolution equations for a strip of nematic elastomer, subject to directional frictional interactions with a flat solid substrate, and cyclically actuated by a spatially uniform, time-periodic stimulus (e.g., temperature change). The presence of frictional forces that are sensitive to the direction of sliding transforms reciprocal, ‘breathing-like’ deformations into directed forward motion. We derive formulas quantifying this motion in the case of distributed friction, by solving a differential inclusion for the displacement field. The simpler case of concentrated frictional interactions at the two ends of the strip is also solved, in order to provide a benchmark to compare the continuously distributed case with a finite-dimensional benchmark. We also provide explicit formulas for the axial force along the crawler body.</p>10aCrawling motility10aDirectional surfaces10aFrictional interactions10aLiquid crystal elastomers10aSoft biomimetic robots1 aDeSimone, Antonio1 aGidoni, Paolo1 aNoselli, Giovanni  uhttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022509615300430