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However, untethered insect-scale soft robots are often plagued with inferior controllability and low kinetic performance. Systematically inspired by the swift swingable abdomen, conducting canals for secretion transport, and body setae of <jats:italic>Stenus comma<\/jats:italic>, together with magnetic-induced fast-transformed postures, herein, we present a swift, agile untethered millimetre-scale soft propulsor propelling on water. The demonstrated propulsor, with a body length (BL) of 3.6\u2009mm, achieved a recorded specific speed of ~201 BL\/s and acceleration of ~8,372 BL\/s<jats:sup>2<\/jats:sup>. The comprehensive kinetic performance of this propulsor surpasses those of previous ones at similar scales by several orders. Notably, we discovered momentum-transfer-induced over-biological on-demand braking (deceleration ~\u22125,010 BL\/s<jats:sup>2<\/jats:sup>) and elucidated the underlying hydrodynamics. This work offers new insights into systematically bio-inspired artificial insect-scale soft robots, enabling them to push boundaries in performance, and potentially revolutionizing robot design, optimization, and control paradigms.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1038\/s41467-024-45997-3","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,2,19]],"date-time":"2024-02-19T12:03:11Z","timestamp":1708344191000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":39,"title":["Stenus-inspired, swift, and agile untethered insect-scale soft propulsors"],"prefix":"10.1038","volume":"15","author":[{"given":"Xingxing","family":"Ke","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Haochen","family":"Yong","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Fukang","family":"Xu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Han","family":"Ding","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3719-406X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Zhigang","family":"Wu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,2,19]]},"reference":[{"key":"45997_CR1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"eaah3690","DOI":"10.1126\/scirobotics.aah3690","volume":"1","author":"C Laschi","year":"2016","unstructured":"Laschi, C., Mazzolai, B. & Cianchetti, M. 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