Octopus-Inspired Material Can Change Its Texture

Olga Visavi/Shutterstock.com

The U.S. Army is funding the creation of shape-shifting sheets that mimic the abilities of the ocean’s masters of camouflage.

There’s a famous viral video in which a diver slowly swims up to a clump of rock and seaweed, only for part of that clump to turn white, open its eye, and jet away, squirting ink behind it. Few videos so dramatically illustrate an octopus’s mastery of camouflage. But ignore, if you can, the creature’s color, and focus on its texture. As its skin shifts from mottled brown to spectral white, it also goes from lumpy to smooth. In literally the blink of an eye, all those little bumps, spikes, and protuberances disappear.

There are three components to an octopus’s camouflage—color, posture, and texture—and that third aspect is perhaps the least studied. But by drawing inspiration from octopuses’ textural tricks, a team of researchers led by Robert Shepherd, from Cornell University, has created a material that can change its shape in a similar way. From a starting position as a flat sheet, it can quickly mimic a field of stones, or the rosette of a succulent plant.

The project was entirely funded by the U.S. Army Research Office—and it’s not hard to imagine why. There are obvious benefits to having materials that can adaptively hide the outlines of vehicles and robots by breaking up their outlines. But there are other applications beyond military ones, Shepherd says. It might cut down on shipping costs if you could deliver materials as flat sheets, and then readily transform them into three-dimensional shapes—like flat-pack furniture, but without the frustrating assembly. Or, as the roboticist Cecilia Laschi notes in a related commentary, biologists could use camouflaged robots to better spy on animals in their natural habitats.

“I don’t see this being implemented in any real application for quite some time,” says Shepherd. Instead, he mainly wants to learn more about how octopuses themselves work, by attempting to duplicate their biological feats with synthetic materials. “I’m just a big nerd who likes biology,” he says.

Octopuses change their texture using small regions in their skin known as papillae. In these structures, muscle fibers run in a spiderweb pattern, with both radial spokes and concentric circles. When these fibers contract, they draw the soft tissue in the papillae towards the center. And since that tissue doesn’t compress very well, the only direction it can go is up. By arranging the muscle fibers in different patterns, the octopus can turn flat, two-dimensional skin into all manner of three-dimensional shapes, including round bumps, sharp spikes, and even branching structures.

Shepherd’s team—which includes the postdoc James Pikul and the octopus expert Roger Hanlon, who took the famous video at the start of this piece—designed their material to work in a similar way. In place of the octopus’s soft flesh, they used a stretchy silicone sheet. And in place of the muscles, they used a mesh of synthetic fibers that were laid down in concentric rings. Normally, the silicone membrane would balloon outward into a sphere when inflated. But the rings of fibers constrain it, limiting its ability to expand and forcing it to shoot upward instead.

By changing the layout of the fibers, the team could create structures that would inflate into various shapes, like round bumps and pointy cones. Pikul grabbed a stone from a local riverbed and programmed the material to mimic its contours. He set the material to create hierarchical shapes—lumps on lumps. He even programmed it to duplicate the more complicated contours of a field of stones, and a plant with spiraling leaves.

For the moment, the material can only be programmed to mimic one predetermined shape at a time. Still, “the results are impressive,” writes Laschi, and “represent a first step toward more general camouflage abilities.” Indeed, Shepherd is now adapting the material so it can transform more flexibly—just like a real octopus. For example, the team could replace the fixed mesh of fibers with rubber tubes, parts of which could be inflated or delated at whim. That way, they could change which bits of the surface are flexible, to determine how it will eventually inflate.

Shepherd’s team is just one of many groups who are attempting to build soft robots, which eschew the traditional hard surfaces of most machines in favor of materials that are soft, bouncy, and floppy. Such bots would theoretically be better at navigating tough terrain, resisting shocks and injuries, and even caring for people. Often, these researchers use the octopus as an inspiration. Last year, Harvard researchers 3-D printed a soft, autonomous “octobot” that moved by burning small amounts of onboard fuel, and channeling the resulting gas into its arms. Laschi, meanwhile, has built a robot with soft floppy arms that can wiggle through the water.

The robots are certainly cool, but they’re nowhere near as versatile as the real deal. Shepherd’s material, for example, can change texture about as fast as an actual octopus, but it can only make one rough shape at a time. The animal, meanwhile, can produce far finer undulations in its skin, which are tuned to whatever it sees in its environment. For now, nothing we produce comes anywhere close.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.