Highlighted News
* IEEE ICRA Workshop on Soft and Stiffness-Controllable Robots for Minimally Invasive Surgery (June 1,2014)
* IEEE ICRA Workshop on Soft Robots (June 5,2014)
* RoboSoft: the Coordination Action for Soft Robotics start!
RoboSoft (http://www.robosoftca.eu/) is an EU-funded Coordination Action (CA) for Soft Robotics under the Future and Emerging Technologies Open Scheme (FP7-ICT-2013-C project #619319), that aims at creating a common forum to help soft robotics researchers to combine their efforts and enable the accumulation and sharing of scientific and technological knowledge to maximize the opportunities and materialize the huge potential impact of soft robotics technologies.
RoboSoft, coordinated by Prof. Cecilia Laschi (The BioRobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy) in partnership with the ETH Zurich (Switzerland) and the University of Bristol (UK), will involve the major excellent research laboratories and institutions at European and international level working in the field of soft robotics to take part to the scientific initiatives of the RoboSoft Community (plenary meetings and workshops, Summer Schools, working groups, and more).
RoboSoft will promote the visibility of soft robotics beyond its community and towards stakeholders and special interest research communities, to provide means for better exploiting the potential of soft robots and technologies in future ICT.
For more information about the RoboRoft Coordination Action please visit the RoboSoft web site: www.robosoftca.eu or contact Dr Laura Margheri, RoboSoft Scientific Secretariat and Management (laura.margheri@sssup.it).
New Project
The “Super Ball Bot” project, under development at NASA Ames, is a robotic exoskeleton designed to land on the surface of Titan without a parachute or airbag. The robot can then roll about the surface by adjusting its shape. The work is also based on the works published as a special issue on morphological computation (Artificial Life, Winter 2013).
Published Journal Articles
* Review, perspective:
- Soft robotics: new perspectives for robot bodyware and control (Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol., January 2014)
* Soft manipulation:
- Design and control of a three-fingered tendon-driven robotic hand with active and passive tendons (Auton Robot., January 2014)
- A variable compliance, soft gripper (Auton Robot., January 2014)
* Soft locomotion:
- A dragline-forming mobile robot inspired by spiders (Bioinspir. Biomim. , January 2014)
- Biological clockwork underlying adaptive rhytmic movements (PNAS, January 2014)
* Soft sensing:
- Design of a flexible tactile sensor for classification of rigid and deformable objects (Robot Auton Syst., January 2014)
- Detection and prevention of slip using sensors with different properties embedded in elastic artificial skin on the basis of previous experience (Robot Auton Syst., January 2014)
* Soft human-robot interactions:
- Design and control of a bio-inspired soft wearable robotic device for ankle–foot rehabilitation (Bioinspir. Biomim. , January 2014)
* Growing robot:
- Growing and evolving soft robots (Artificial Life, Winter 2014)
* Soft actuator, flexible actuator, compliant actuator:
- A bio-inspired multi degree of freedom actuator based on a novel cylindrical ionic polymer–metal composite material (Robot Auton Syst., January 2014)
* Morphological computation, morphological change, self organization:
- Active sensing system with in situ adjustable sensor morphology (PLoS ONE, December 2013)
- The magneto-elastica: from self-buckling to self-assembly (Proc. R. Soc. A, December 2013)
- Untethered micro-robotic coding of three-dimensional material composition (Nat Commun., January 2014)
- A three-dimensional analysis of morphological evolution and locomotor performance of the carnivoran forelimb (PLoS ONE, January 2014)
* Soft matter electronics, stretchable electronics:
- Multiscale instabilities in soft heterogeneous dielectric elastomers (Proc. R. Soc. A, December 2013)
- Fractal design concepts for stretchable electronics (Nat Commun., February 2014)
* Biological studies:
- Generalized mathematical representation of the soft tissue artefact (J. Biomech., January 2014)
- Modular organization of axial microcircuits in zebrafish (Science, January 2014)
- Structure and mechanical properties of Octopus vulgaris sucker (J. R. Soc. Interface, February 2014)
- The passive properties of muscle fibers are velocity dependent (J. Biomech., February 2014)
Conference Papers
- Soft cell simulator: A tool to study soft multi-cellular robots (IEEE ROBIO, December 2013)
- Knee stiffness adjustment for energy efficient locomotion of a legged robot on surfaces with different stiffness (IEEE ROBIO, December 2013)
Popular Article
- Octopus suckers have groovy secret for strength (Scientific American, December 2013)
- Octopus suckers to inspire new devices (Pan European Networks, December 2013)
- Rubbery robot fingers play piano faster than a human (New Scientist, January 2014)
- Spider-Man robot spins own web to abseil off a cliff (New Scientist, January 2014)
- Spiderman robot spins draglines to cross open space (Phys.org, January 2014)
- The adaptive robot (ETH News, February 2014)