Solutions to just about every hard engineering problem in robotics can be found in the biology of animals, where nature seems to be telling us to ‘take a softer approach’
A leading researcher in this field, Rolf Pfeifer (AI Lab, University of Zurich) took his inspiration from work on ‘embodied cognition’.
His criteria for soft robotics:
- soft to the touch
- soft in their interaction
- soft and natural in their movements
Soft robotics is part of a much bigger subject called ‘bio-inspired robotics‘.
A lot of this subject is devoted to locomotion, so I thought I would track down an excellent video on this aspect:
The topic of soft robotics has its own peer-reviewed journal SoRo.
According to this press release the journal:
“provides the latest research and developments on topics such as”:
- soft material creation, characterization, and modeling
- flexible and degradable electronics
- soft actuators and sensors
- control and simulation of highly deformable structures
- biomechanics
- control of soft animals and tissues
- biohybrid devices and living machines
- design and fabrication of conformable machines
