A high-resolution selective plasma treatment process for the manufacture of soft structures with self-assembled conductive and magnetic features

Soft robotics and its allied fields have demonstrated extraordinary capabilities that promise to revolutionise human-robot collaboration, wearable technology, and healthcare. These remarkable feats derive from the constituent materials, and their structured arrangement. However, there is a disconnect between the heterogeneous multi-material structures desired by soft roboticists and the capabilities of the manufacturing methods at their disposal. Template driven methods severely restrict geometric freedom and are inefficient for iterative design or personalisation. Meanwhile, direct production techniques, such as 3D printing, have material constraints, long manufacture times per unit, and poor resolution. These limitations are constraining the potential of soft robots and preventing the commercial transition of already proven soft robotic technology. This thesis presents a new manufacturing approach for the realisation of soft bodies with conductive and magnetic micro-scale features. The results presented highlight the capability of this manufacturing technology to create soft structures flexibly, with capabilities and economic scaling beyond current state of the art manufacturing process. These features present several exciting opportunities for the next generation of advanced soft robotic devices, and their translation to commercial exploitation.