Toward Perceptive Soft Robots: Progress and Challenges

Abstract

In the past few years, soft robotics has rapidly become an emerging research topic, opening new possibilities for addressing real‐world tasks. Perception can enable robots to effectively explore the unknown world, and interact safely with humans and the environment. Among all extero‐ and proprioception modalities, the detection of mechanical cues is vital, as with living beings. A variety of soft sensing technologies are available today, but there is still a gap to effectively utilize them in soft robots for practical applications. Here, the developments in soft robots with mechanical sensing are summarized to provide a comprehensive understanding of the state of the art in this field. Promising sensing technologies for mechanically perceptive soft robots are described, categorized, and their pros and cons are discussed. Strategies for designing soft sensors and criteria to evaluate their performance are outlined from the perspective of soft robotic applications. Challenges and trends in developing multimodal sensors, stretchable conductive materials and electronic interfaces, modeling techniques, and data interpretation for soft robotic sensing are highlighted. The knowledge gap and promising solutions toward perceptive soft robots are discussed and analyzed to provide a perspective in this field.

Bio‐inspired Design and Additive Manufacturing of Soft Materials, Machines, Robots, and Haptic Interfaces

“…[73] More recently,W allin et al and Wang et al discussed the progress and challenges in soft robotics sensing. [11,74] Here,we focus on the innovations in materials and manufacturing that have been reported for three types of sensing:r esistive sensing,capacitive sensing,and optical sensing ( Figure 2).…”

Advanced Artificial Muscle for Flexible Material‐Based Reconfigurable Soft Robots

“…Sci. 2019, 6,1901371 between the actuating and the releasing processes can also be observed. The artificial muscles have good shape recovery and deformation performances in cycle experiments, as shown in Figure 2c,d and Tables S3 and S4 (Supporting Information).…”

“…Sci. 2019, 6,1901371 respectively. Screw connector offers notable advantages of reliability, stability, and dismountability.…”

“…Sci. 2019, 6,1901371 reconfigured to complete various tasks, which is as interesting as "building bricks".…”

Aerosol Jet Printing for the Manufacture of Soft Robotic Devices

“…Techniques that remove the geometric limitations of the casting, molding and soft lithographic techniques often used in soft robotics will allow promising design approaches, such as algorithmic design, to be applied without restriction [3]. Improvements in control can be realized through in-situ manufacture of sensors that allow a greater degree of proprioception and environmental awareness for closed-loop operation [4]. Furthermore, we are able to extend the range of materials to create soft robotic structures through manufacturing processes which do not have inherent rheological constraints.…”