Sensory Artificial Octopus Suckers with Highly Adaptive Soft Micro-Denticles

Geometric and material adhesion mechanisms inspired by natural organisms have been shown to be effective and useful by providing adaptive switchable adhesion and versatile applications. Several biologically inspired devices with high adaptability and robust dry and wet adhesion have been reported. However, it is still difficult to achieve stable and switchable attachments to objects with curved, rough, and irregular surfaces, especially in dry and aquatic environments. Here, an electronically sensory switchable adhesive device with an adaptable soft microstructure inspired by the geometric and material properties of micro-denticles on the surface of an octopus sucker is presented. The contact interface of artificial octopus suckers (AOS) is imprinted with soft micro-denticles that interact appropriately with very rough or curved surfaces. AOS with soft micro-denticles (AOS-sm) provides strong and controllable attachment to dry and wet surfaces of various shapes and conformal attachment to highly rough curves and soft objects. The carbon nanotube-based strain sensor with a three-dimensional structure formed to mimic nerves-like functions of an octopus in the AOS architecture does decision-making capabilities to predict the weight and center of gravity for samples with diverse shapes, sizes, and mechanical properties through machine learning. Also assembled with octopus-arm-inspired soft actuators, the AOS-sms reliably grips and transports complex polyhedrons, rough objects, and soft, delicate, and slippery biological samples.