Soft robotics

Soft Robotics is a subfield of robotics that deals with robots built out of soft and deformable material like silicone, plastic, fabric, rubber, or compliant mechanical parts like springs. Soft robots can actively interact with the environment and can undergo “large” deformations relying on inherent or structural compliance respectively due to the softness or the morphological features of its body.

Aspects of Soft Robots

Soft robots are often, but not necessarily, bio-inspired. They have a number of advantages over rigid robots. For example, deformable structures play an important role for robots that have to deal with uncertainty and and highly dynamic tasks and environments, for example, locomotion in rough and unknown terrain or grasping of unknown objects. Also safety plays a role when considering soft material in the design of robots as softness allows for safe physical contact with living cells and human bodies. In addition, deformable material and structures like springs are potentially able to store and release energy, which is beneficial for energy efficient locomotion. Another advantage of soft robotics is that the used materials are much cheaper than metal parts and high-torque servos employe in classical robotic systems.

A disadvantage of soft robots is that their soft structures are difficult to model and, therefore, hard to control. Furthermore, this field of research is quiet young and most of the built robots are in the prototype stage and still have to demonstrate to be useful in industrial applications.

Scientific Community

Although people have been using soft material for robots for a long time, only recently an international community has been formed. For example, since October 2012 exists an IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Soft Robotics, which coordinates the international community around this field of research. In 2013 the International Journal on Soft Robotics was funded. It publishes quarterly results from the field. In October 2013 started RoboSoft – A Coordination Action for Soft Robotics funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme, Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) Open Scheme. The goal of the project is to consolidate the international scientific community of scientists and roboticists working in the field of soft robotics.

International Journals

• Soft Robotics (SoRo) (http://www.liebertpub.com/soro)
• Soft Robotics section of Frontiers in Robotics and AI (http://journal.frontiersin.org/journal/robotics-and-ai/section/soft-robotics)

International Events

• 2015 First Soft Robotics Challenge, April 29-30, Livorno, Italy, see description of GrandChallenge
• 2016 Soft Robotics week, April 25-30, Livorno, Italy
• 2015 Soft Robotics: Actuation, Integration, and Applications - Blending research perspectives for a leap forward in soft robotics technology (http://robotics.oregonstate.edu/icra2015softrobotics), 2015 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Seattle WA, May 2014
• 2014 Workshop on Advances on Soft Robotics (http://www.robosoftca.eu/events/rss2014-workshop), 2014 Robotics Science an Systems (RSS) Conference, Berkeley, CA, July 13, 2014
• 2013 International Workshop on Soft Robotics and Morphological Computation (http://www.softrobot2013.ethz.ch), Monte Verità, July 14-19, 2013
• 2012 Summer School on Soft Robotics (http://www.birl.ethz.ch/sssr2012%7CETH), Zurich, June 18-22, 2012