Highlighted News
* IEEE ICRA 2017 Workshop: Advanced Fabrication and Morphological Computation for Soft Robotics
* IEEE ICRA 2017 Workshop: Innovative Haptic Interfaces Emerging from Soft Robotics
* IEEE ICRA 2017 Competition: Soft Material Robot Challenge
* The IIT Center for Micro-BioRobotics invites applications for two postdoctoral fellowships in bioinspired soft robotics. Applicants must have a PhD degree in one of the following areas: Biorobotics, Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, Biomechanics, or a related field. For further detail, please visit here.
* A postdoctoral research assistant position is available in the Department of Informatics to work with Dr Matthew Howard in the world-leading Centre for Robotics Research at King’s College London on the new EPRSC funded project SoftSkills. For more information, please click here.
* Soft robotics related publications are listed as the most influential research published in the Bioinspiration and Biomimetics journal in 2016. Further information can be found here.
New Videos
* BBC World News – How the octopus inspires surgical tools
Published Journal Articles
* Related review:
- Soft robotics: Technologies and systems pushing the boundaries of robot abilities (Science Robotics, Dec 2016)
* Soft arm, manipulation, grasping:
- Compact and low-cost humanoid hand powered by nylon artificial muscles (Bioinspir. Biomim., Feb 2017)
* Soft locomotion, compliant manipulation:
- The merits of passive compliant joints in legged locomotion: Fast learning, superior energy efficiency, and versatile sensing in a quadruped robot (J. Bionic. Eng, Jan 2017)
- General dynamic algorithm for floating base tree structure robots with flexible joints and links (J. Mechanisms Robotics, Jan 2017)
- Performance variation due to stiffness in a tuna-inspired flexible foil model (Bioinspir. Biomim., Jan 2017)
- Poincaré’s equations for cosserat media: Application to shells (J. Nonlinear Sci., Feb. 2017)
- Locomotion dynamics for bio-inspired robots with soft appendages: Application to flapping flight and passive swimming (J. Nonlinear Sci., Feb. 2017)
* Soft sensing, artificial skin, electronic skin:
- The rise of plastic bioelectronics (Nature, Dec 2016)
- Skinning a robot: Design methodologies for large-scale robot skin (IEEE Robot. Autom. Mag., Dec 2016)
- Soft nanocomposite based multi-point, multi-directional strain mapping sensor using anisotropic electrical impedance tomography (Sci. Rep., Jan 2017)
* Soft actuator, flexible actuator, compliant actuator:
- A survey on dielectric elastomer actuators for soft robots (Bioinspir. Biomim., Jan 2017)
- Bio-inspired annelid robot: a dielectric elastomer actuated soft robot (Bioinspir. Biomim., Jan 2017)
- Automatic design of fiber-reinforced soft actuators for trajectory matching (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., Jan 2017)
- Hydraulic hydrogel actuators and robots optically and sonically camouflaged in water (Nature Commun., Feb 2017)
* Soft robot application:
- A magnetic soft endoscopic capsule-inflated intragastric balloon for weight management (Sci. Rep., Dec 2016)
- Total mesorectal excision using a soft and flexible robotic arm: a feasibility study in cadaver models (Surgical Endoscopy, Jan 2017)
- Soft robotic sleeve supports heart function (Sci. Transl. Med., Jan 2017)
- Soft modular robotic cubes: Toward replicating morphogenetic movements of the embryo (PLoS ONE, Jan 2017)
- Learning autonomous behaviours for the body of a flexible surgical robot (Autonomous Robot, Feb 2017)
- Design and energetic evaluation of a prosthetic knee joint actuator with a lockable parallel spring (Bioinspir. Biomim., Feb 2017)
* Soft robot fabrication, growing robot:
- Printing soft matter in three dimensions (Nature, Dec 2016)
* Morphological computation, morphological change, self-organization:
- Enhanced locomotion efficiency of a bio-inspired walking robot using contact surfaces with frictional anisotropy (Sci. Rep., Dec 2016)
- Passive swimming in viscous oscillatory flows (Phys. Rev. E, Dec 2016)
- Decentralized control scheme for myriapod robot inspired by adaptive and resilient centipede locomotion (PLoS ONE, Feb 2017)
Books / Proceedings
- A bio-inspired electro-active velcro mechanism using Shape Memory Alloy for wearable and stiffness controllable layers (IEEE ICIAFS 2016)
Popular Articles
- Optics give robot hand a light touch (The Engineer, Dec 2016)
- Stretchy robotic suit reduces energy used to walk by 23 percent (New Scientist, Jan 2017)
- Soft exosuit economies: Understanding the costs of lightening the load (Robohub, Jan 2017)
- A transparent, self-healing, highly stretchable conductive material (KurzweilAI, Jan 2017)
- Squishy clockwork biobot could dose you with drugs from the inside (IEEE Spectrum, Jan 2017)
- Soft robot hugs your heart to keep it pumping (IEEE Spectrum, Jan 2017)
- Two approaches to robotic skin materials (Design News, Jan 2017)
- Hydraulic muscle makes for tougher, stronger disaster-site robots (New Atlas, Jan 2017)
- Knitted muscle could power the supersuits of the future (Science Mag., Jan 2017)
- Watch a squishy robot oh-so-gently catch a fish (Popular Science, Feb. 2017)
- Transparent, gel-based robots can catch and release live fish (Robohub, Feb 2017)