Soft Rotary Electromagnetic Motor

Georgia Tech researchers have created a soft rotary motor using liquid metal, compliant magnetic composites, and silicone polymers. The motor can be squished and squeezed in all directions, which can one day improve the compatibility between humans and robots and extend the capability of soft robots. This soft motor is orders of magnitude faster and stronger than previously developed soft motors with a no-load speed of up to 4000 rpm, which approaches the capability of traditional hard motors! To showcase this new technology, the soft motor is used in a variety of applications from squeeze-based speed control to fully-soft underwater propulsion to hybrid water pumps to propelling a hybrid toy car. This demonstrates how the fully-soft rotary electromagnetic actuator can bridge the gap between the capabilities of traditional hard motors and novel soft actuator concepts. N. Kohls, R. Balak, B. P. Ruddy, and Y. C. Mazumdar, “Soft Electromagnetic Motor and Soft Magnetic Sensors for Synchronous Rotary Mo