Congratulation to Xin Wang for his article “Bioinspired footed soft robot withunidirectional all-terrain mobility”has been accepted byMaterials Today andselected as inner cover.

  Soft robots consisting of stimuli-responsive soft materials are expected to achieve tasks otherwiseimpossible by robots with conventional rigid counterparts. In spite of good progress made over the pastseveral years, robot mobility on various surfaces remains challenging. Here, we report a footed softrobot with good terrain adaptability and large load carrying capability by mimicking the anisotropicfriction of gecko setae and the gait of caterpillars. The robot, termed as Geca-Robot, is composed ofgecko-inspired triangular micropillars as the feet and alternating cuboids of polydimethylsiloxane(PDMS) and graphene–PDMS as the muscle. Geca-Robot is remotely powered by light with wavelengthsranging from ultraviolet to infrared, and moves with a caterpillar-like gait. The gecko-inspiredfeet allows Geca-Robot to unidirectionally travel on terrains of varying roughness, slope, and drynesswith a wide working temperature range, and to carry loads weighing approximately 50 times its ownmass. Geca-Robot will inspire the creation of further soft robot designs for various natural terrains.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mattod.2019.12.028