Leech-Inspired Amphibious Soft Robot Driven by High-Voltage Triboelectricity

Leech locomotion, characterized by alternating sucker attachment and body contraction provides high adaptability and stability on complex terrains. Herein, a leech-inspired triboelectric soft robot is proposed for the first time, capable of amphibious movement, climbing, and load-carrying crawling. A high-performance triboelectric bionic robot system is developed to drive and control electro-responsive soft robots. Its core components include: i) a leech-inspired soft robot (LSR) made from segmented dielectric elastomer muscles. ii) The triboelectric sucker produces anisotropic frictional forces. iii) The multi-channel high-voltage output triboelectric nanogenerator (HDC-TENG) effectively drives the LSR. iv) The high-voltage triboelectric control unit adapted for the HDC-TENG enables flexible LSR control. Using the scalable structure of the dielectric elastomer muscles enables the LSR to achieve a maximum crawling speed of 0.39 body lengths per minute on land (45 mm min^-1) and 0.22 body lengths per minute in liquid (30.5 mm min^-1). It can also carry a payload of 11.55 grams on acrylic while crawling. This research provides a sustainable and promising new solution for self-powered high-voltage energy sources suitable for electro-responsive soft robots.