Fig. 6: Soft robots for extreme environments.

a Structure diagram of the soft robot. b Schematic illustration of soft robot crawling at extreme environments. c Demonstration of the drive of soft robots in one cycle. d The speed of the soft robot varied with the frequencies and reached a maximum speed of 3.5 BL s⁻¹, about 15.4 cm s⁻¹ at a frequency of 30 Hz. Data are presented as mean values +/− SD, n = 3. e, f Comparison of our soft robot: e Crawl speed versus temperature range. f Crawl speed versus electric field. The data and references involved in the charts are presented in Supplementary Table 13. g The soft robot locomotion at a low temperature environment of −20 °C and reached a maximum speed of 3.7 BL s⁻¹, about 16.3 cm s⁻¹ at 32 MV m^-1 and 30 Hz. h The soft robot locomotion at a high temperature environment of 100 °C and reached a maximum speed of 3.6 BL s⁻¹, about 15.8 cm s⁻¹ at 28 MV m^-1 and 15 Hz. Scale bars: 1 cm.