Advances in autonomous materials and structures

Abstract

The ceaseless quest to realize novel classes of functional materials has provided new road maps to material autonomy. Autonomous materials and structures offer advanced functionalities such as sensing, actuation, selfhealing, communication, and computing to create a sense–decide–respond loop. They have numerous applications in robotics, human-machine interfacing, micro/nano-electromechanical systems, and flexible electronics. During the past decades, tremendous effort has been made to push the development of autonomous materials and structures. This paper presents an overview of the recent progresses, challenges and futures trends in autonomous materials and structures. In the area of material autonomy, active multifunctional metamaterials appear to open enormous field of study. Their scalability is an important feature to create building blocks for multiscale autonomous structures. Thus, this review paper provides an insight into their developments and future trends. The foreseeable challenges are further discussed.