Lightning strike Owies Wani et al., Nature Communications

Snap! – and the robot’s got it. An artificial Venus flytrap can seize items hundreds of times heavier than itself when they come within reach. Using a combination of smart materials and optical fibres, the artificial flytrap can sense when something should be grabbed.

The artificial flytrap is only a couple of millimetres wide and less than a centimetre tall. The leaves are made of a light-responsive material containing small molecular switches that change shape when hit by light.

Its stem consists of an optical fibre that provides both power and vision. When the flytrap is open, light sent through the fibre exits past the leaves. Any object placed within the gripping range of the flytrap, reflects light back to the leaves, activating the molecular switches and causing them to shut. A normal Venus flytrap can react in around 100 milliseconds. The artificial one takes about double this.


“Natural Venus flytraps are remarkable because they are fast snapping and can distinguish between objects, such as flies and dust,” says Arri Priimägi at Tampere University of Technology, Finland, who is one of the creators of the artificial flytrap.

Inspired by nature, the artificial flytrap is also relatively fast snapping and can distinguish between objects that reflect light and those that don’t. “We believe that next we can make an artificial flytrap that distinguishes between colours as well,” says Priimägi.

In the future, artificial flytraps could be used on a production line for tiny objects. Small electric components, for example, may be grabbed by the flytraps if the way they reflect light indicates a defect.

“Through mimicking the Venus flytrap, this shows one way that soft robots could detect and respond to their environment using optical signals,” says Cheemeng Tan at the University of California, Davis. Looking at biology can provide inspiration for better robotics, he says.

Journal reference: Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15546