Architected metamaterials for routing nonlinear mechanical pulses

Actuation, locomotion, and sensing of robotic systems are just some of the key functionalities that can be enhanced by the efficient control of nonlinear mechanical waves in mechanical metamaterials. Within this context, we focus on the design of flexible mechanical metamaterials to route nonlinear pulses along target, arbitrary paths. We show that optimal architectures can be identified via an inverse design approach powered by the automatic differentiation of the forward nonlinear dynamic problem. The robustness of the optimal systems is then analyzed with respect to mechanical inputs of different amplitudes. The outcome is a strongly nonlinear metamaterial with potential for, for instance, propulsion in soft robotics, energy harvesting, mechanical logic, and controlled energy absorption.