(Press-News.org) HOUSTON – (June 9, 2025) – Researchers at Rice University have developed a soft robotic arm capable of performing complex tasks such as navigating around an obstacle or hitting a ball, guided and powered remotely by laser beams without any onboard electronics or wiring. The research could inform new ways to control implantable surgical devices or industrial machines that need to handle delicate objects.
In a proof-of-concept study that integrates smart materials, machine learning and an optical control system, a team of Rice researchers led by materials scientist Hanyu Zhu used a light-patterning device to precisely induce motion in a robotic arm made from azobenzene liquid crystal elastomer ⎯ a type of polymer that responds to light.
According to the study published in Advanced Intelligent Systems, the new robotic system incorporates a neural network trained to predict the exact light pattern needed to create specific arm movements. This makes it easier for the robot to execute complex tasks without needing similarly complex input from an operator.
“This was the first demonstration of real-time, reconfigurable, automated control over a light-responsive material for a soft robotic arm,” said Elizabeth Blackert, a Rice doctoral alumna who is the first author on the study.
Conventional robots typically involve rigid structures with mobile elements like hinges, wheels or grippers to enable a predefined, relatively constrained range of motion. Soft robots have opened up new areas of application in contexts like medicine, where safely interacting with delicate objects is required. So-called continuum robots are a type of soft robot that forgoes mobility constraints, enabling adaptive motion with a vastly expanded degree of freedom.
“A major challenge in using soft materials for robots is they are either tethered or have very simple, predetermined functionality,” said Zhu, assistant professor of materials science and nanoengineering. “Building remotely and arbitrarily programmable soft robots requires a unique blend of expertise involving materials development, optical system design and machine learning capabilities. Our research team was uniquely suited to take on this interdisciplinary work.”
The team created a new variation of an elastomer that shrinks under blue laser light then relaxes and regrows in the dark ⎯ a feature known as fast relaxation time that makes real-time control possible. Unlike other light-sensitive materials that require harmful ultraviolet light or take minutes to reset, this one works with safer, longer wavelengths and responds within seconds.
“When we shine a laser on one side of the material, the shrinking causes the material to bend in that direction,” Blackert said. “Our material bends toward laser light like a flower stem does toward sunlight.”
To control the material, the researchers used a spatial light modulator to split a single laser beam into multiple beamlets, each directed to a different part of the robotic arm. The beamlets can be turned on or off and adjusted in intensity, allowing the arm to bend or contract at any given point, much like the tentacles of an octopus. This technique can in principle create a robot with virtually infinite degrees of freedom ⎯ far beyond the capabilities of traditional robots with fixed joints.
“What is new here is using the light pattern to achieve complex changes in shape,” said Rafael Verduzco, professor and associate chair of chemical and biomolecular engineering and professor of materials science and nanoengineering. “In prior work, the material itself was patterned or programmed to change shape in one way, but here the material can change in multiple ways, depending on the laser beamlet pattern.”
To train such a multiparameter arm, the team ran a small number of combinations of light settings and recorded how the robot arm deformed in each case, using the data to train a convolutional neural network ⎯ a type of artificial intelligence used in image recognition. The model was then able to output the exact light pattern needed to create a desired shape such as flexing or a reach-around motion.
The current prototype is flat and moves in 2D, but future versions could bend in three dimensions with additional sensors and cameras.
“This is a step towards having safer, more capable robotics for various applications ranging from implantable biomedical devices to industrial robots that handle soft goods,” Blackert said.
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation (2240106, 1842494, 1828869), the Welch Foundation (C-2124) and the JP Morgan Chase AI Research program. All opinions expressed in this press release are the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect the policies and views of the funding entities.
-30-
This news release can be found online at news.rice.edu.
Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.
Peer-reviewed paper:
Spatiotemporally Controlled Soft Robotics with Optically Responsive Liquid Crystal Elastomers | Advanced Intelligent Systems | DOI: 10.1002/aisy.202500045
Authors: Elizabeth Blackert, Phoebe Scaccia, Morgan Barnes, Taniya Pathiranage, Rafael Verduzco, Vaibhav Unhelkar and Hanyu Zhu
https://doi.org/10.1002/aisy.202500045
Access associated media files:
URL: https://rice.box.com/s/tvu036uzqh8ifpgt4bkr88duf73ddtj3
Credit: Photos by Jeff Fitlow/Rice University
About Rice:
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Texas, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of architecture, business, continuing studies, engineering and computing, humanities, music, natural sciences and social sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. Internationally, the university maintains the Rice Global Paris Center, a hub for innovative collaboration, research and inspired teaching located in the heart of Paris. With 4,776 undergraduates and 4,104 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for lots of race/class interaction and No. 7 for best-run colleges by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by the Wall Street Journal and is included on Forbes’ exclusive list of “New Ivies.”
END
Light and AI drive precise motion in soft robotic arm developed at Rice
2025-06-09
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Vital connections between journalists and whistleblowers under increasing pressure
2025-06-09
Investigative journalists are facing severe challenges and threats, and their vital connections with whistleblowers are under increasing pressure, researchers have said.
Legal intimidation is having a "chilling effect" and those engaged in crime and security journalism are encountering extreme risks.
Experts have discussed their significant concerns about the perils many journalists face in their commitment to uncovering truth, from pervasive state surveillance to targeted prosecution and even espionage ...
Patients are opting in for 10 years of breast cancer treatment
2025-06-09
ANN ARBOR, Michigan — As recommendations suggest extending hormone-based breast cancer treatment to 10 years for some patients, a new study sheds light on whether patients are opting for it.
In a study of 591 women with early stage breast cancer who completed five years of endocrine therapy, 47% decided to continue the treatment. Patients with stage 2 disease were more likely to continue, with 62% agreeing, compared to 39% of patients with stage 1 cancer.
The study, led by researchers at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center and Stanford Medicine, was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Endocrine ...
Center for Bioenergy Innovation taps Cregger, Eckert as chief science officers
2025-06-09
The Center for Bioenergy Innovation, or CBI, at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has promoted Melissa Cregger and Carrie Eckert to serve as chief science officers, advancing the center’s mission of innovations for new domestic biofuels, chemicals and materials.
Cregger will oversee CBI’s development of resilient, high-yielding, non-food feedstock crops, while Eckert will guide the center’s research on cost-effective methods to break down and convert plant biomass into valuable fuels and products.
Brian Davison, chief scientist for biotechnology at ORNL and formerly chief science officer for the center, ...
Anthropologists map Neanderthals’ long and winding roads across Europe and Eurasia
2025-06-09
Recent scholarship has concluded that Neanderthals made a second major migration from Eastern Europe to Central and Eastern Eurasia between 120,000 and 60,000 years ago. But the routes they took have long been a mystery—primarily because there are few archaeological sites connecting the two regions.
In a new analysis, a team of anthropologists—using computer simulations—has offered a map of possible pathways, which concludes Neanderthals likely used river valleys as natural highways and traveled during warmer periods to move approximately 2,000 miles (3,250 km) in less than 2,000 years.
“Our findings show that, despite obstacles like mountains ...
Stress genes clear dead cells, offering disease insights
2025-06-09
A new study from The University of Texas at Arlington details a novel strategy for how the body clears out dead cells during stress, revealing unexpected roles for well-known stress-response genes—a discovery that could help scientists better understand diseases affecting the immune system, brain and metabolism.
“The body is constantly creating new cells and removing old cells once they die,” said Aladin Elkhalil, lead author of the study and a third-year doctoral student in the lab of Piya Ghose, ...
Healthy sleep patterns in adolescence predict better cardiovascular health in the future
2025-06-09
DARIEN, IL – A new study to be presented at the SLEEP 2025 annual meeting found that teens with earlier, more efficient, and less variable sleep patterns at age 15 had better cardiovascular health at age 22.
Results show that several healthy sleep habits at age 15 predicted a higher (better) cardiovascular health score at age 22: falling asleep and waking up earlier, spending a lower percentage of time in bed awake, and having lower variability in total sleep time and sleep onset. In contrast, average total sleep time did not predict future cardiovascular health. Results were adjusted for potential confounders ...
A study led by CIC bioGUNE delves into the complexity of the most aggressive form of prostate cancer
2025-06-09
Cancer cannot be understood as a single, uniform disease. The more we delve into studying each type of tumor, the more we recognize the need to subclassify the disease. This concept has led to what we now call precision oncology, characterizing the molecular features of a patient's specific cancer to determine the most effective treatment.
Prostate cancer is considered the most prevalent tumor among men, and it typically has a high cure rate. As such, although many men will be diagnosed with this cancer, the majority will be cured. "However, when we refer ...
Effects of psilocybin on religious and spiritual attitudes and behaviors in clergy from major world religions
2025-06-09
A new study in the peer-reviewed journal Psychedelic Medicine showed that psilocybin administration in a sample of clergy from major world religions increased multiple domains of overall psychological well-being, including positive changes in religious attitudes and behavior as well as effectiveness in their vocation as a religious leader. Click here to read the article now.
The late Roland Griffiths, of Johns Hopkins University, along with Stephen Ross and Anthony Bossis, from New York University Grossman School ...
Investigating how stress may cause sleep and memory deficits
2025-06-09
Stress worsens sleep quality and can impair memory. Shinjae Chung, from the University of Pennsylvania, led a study to explore a neural pathway in male mice that stress may influence to cause sleep and memory disturbances.
In their JNeurosci paper, the researchers artificially activated neurons in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVN) that were previously linked to stress. This experimental manipulation made mice sleep less and impaired how well mice performed in a memory task. Notably, when mice were stressed, artificially inhibiting these PVN neurons reduced stress-related memory ...
Researchers find thousands of pediatric firearm deaths linked to more permissive state gun laws
2025-06-09
Guns are now the leading cause of death for youth in the United States. Researcher from Mass General Brigham investigated whether firearm mortality rates among U.S. children ages 0-17 changed in the 13 years following a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that applied the Second Amendment to state and local governments. In states with the most permissive firearm laws, they found evidence of 6,029 more pediatric deaths due to firearms than would have been expected based on the existing demographic trends—and more than 1,400 excess ...