Ionic Hydrogel Devices: Spiderwebs and Electroreceptors

Stretchable ionic conductors that sense, clean, and capture — soft devices built from hydrogels.

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Motivation

Spiders build webs that sense prey through vibration, stay clean, and capture targets — all with soft, compliant threads. With collaborators at Seoul National University, we built soft engineering analogues from stretchable ionic hydrogels.

Ionic spiderwebs (Science Robotics 2020)

Stretchable ionic-conductor threads that combine three functions in one structure: electrostatic prey (object) capture, vibration-based sensing, and self-cleaning. My role centered on the mechanics and physical modeling behind the web’s operation, coupled to the experimental characterization of its performance under repeated actuation and contamination-cleaning cycles.

Soft artificial electroreceptors (Science Advances 2021)

Inspired by the electroreception of rays and sharks, we developed soft sensors that perceive nearby objects without contact by detecting perturbations in an electric field. As co-first author, I worked on the physical modeling and analysis linking electrode geometry, field distortion, and the measured sensing signals.

Why it matters

Both projects live at the soft-materials/robotics interface: hydrogel synthesis and device fabrication, bonding of soft conductors to rigid electronics, and quantitative characterization of soft devices under realistic operating conditions — stretching, contamination, humidity, and repeated cycling.