Multimodal switches exploiting electromechanical snap-through for versatile robotic information processing

It is highly desirable to design and engineer lightweight, low-power-consumption, and rapid physical intelligence (PI) structures that couple with multiple robotic functions. Here, we present a multimodal electromechanical switch (mEMS), consisting of a stretchable droplet-amplified electrostatic zipping structure, a convex bump, and a pair of electrical contacts, that can be used to achieve the widely used mechanical momentary, mechanical latching, and electrically actuated switching modes by simply tuning the applied voltage and using the same structure. We theoretically investigate the snap-through behavior of the elastic zipping membrane, which can be used to endow the mEMS with voltage-dependent memory, and the theoretical considerations are experimentally validated. As a result, we can apply the mEMS array for robotic memory, such as information writing and erasing; robotic communication by reprogrammable information encrypting, decrypting, and display; robotic computation by electrically reprogrammable logic gates; and reprogrammable binary information transferring. The mEMS represents a comprehensive PI structure for next-generation autonomous machines that can better adapt in unstructured and complex real-world environments.