Recent and Upcoming Events
* SoftRobot 2013 (International Workshop on Soft Robotics and Morphological Computation, July 2013). Media coverage:
- Front page of ETH website
- ETH Life
- Radiotelevisione svizzera di lingua italiana (RSI), 12’37”-15’27”
- LaRegione Ticino
* The launch of Soft Robotics (SoRo): a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the science and engineering of soft materials in mobile machines.
* The first soft robotics workshop at IROS (November, 2013).
New Project
Softworm crowdsourcing project (The Tufts Center for Engineering Education and Outreach and the Neuromechanics and Biomimetic Devices Laboratory): “We focus on developing a social media platform for determining control strategies for robots. Users log on to our website and take turns controlling our robotic caterpillar, the Softworm, while we crowd source their strategies in order to create a genetic algorithm for the robot”. Further information can be found here.
Published Journal Articles
* Review:
* Soft manipulation:
- Design, modeling and control of a pneumatically actuated manipulator inspired by biological continuum structures (Bioinspir. Biomim., June 2013)
- Open-loop precision grasping with underactuated hands inspired by a human manipulation strategy (IEEE TASE, July 2013)
* Soft sensing:
- Robot tactile sensing: gold nanocomposites as highly sensitive real-time optical pressure sensors (IEEE RAM, June 2013)
* Soft actuator, flexible actuator, compliant actuator:
- Fast low-voltage electroactive actuators using nanostructured polymer electrolytes (Nat Commun., July 2013)
- Reversible patterning and actuation of hydrogels by electrically assisted ionoprinting (Nat Commun., August 2013)
- Energy harvesting from the tail beating of a carangiform swimmer using ionic polymer–metal composites (Bioinspir. Biomim., June 2013)
- A contact-aided compliant displacement-delimited gripper manipulator (J. Mechanisms Robotics, July 2013)
* Morphological computation, self organization:
- Droplets out of equilibrium (Science, July 2013)
- Eddy viscosity in dense granular flows (Physical Review Letters, August 2013)
* Biological studies:
- The morphology and adhesion mechanism of octopus vulgaris suckers (PLoS ONE, June 2013)
- A new method for the analysis of soft tissues with data acquired under field conditions (PLoS ONE, June 2013)
Popular Article
- Inflatable arm will soften up anti-bomb robot (NewScientist, June 2013)