Towards an ontology for soft robots: what is soft?

Chubb, Kevin; Berry, Damon; Burke, Ted

doi:10.1088/1748-3190/ab483f

Cited by 20 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 68 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…[ 51 ] In addition, combining less flexible or even stiff materials with flexible membranes in articulated soft robots, allows to increase the force output. [ 151 ] However, multistage casting is time‐consuming [ 152 ] and introduces weak (multi‐material) interfaces in the actuators, which rely mostly on weak physical interactions. These interfaces are usually broken after a relatively low number of actuation cycles and lead to failure by interfacial debonding and delamination.…”

Section: Formative Manufacturingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Processing of Self‐Healing Polymers for Soft Robotics

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Soft robots are, due to their softness, inherently safe and adapt well to unstructured environments. However, they are prone to various damage types. Self‐healing polymers address this vulnerability. Self‐healing soft robots can recover completely from macroscopic damage, extending their lifetime. For developing healable soft robots, various formative and additive manufacturing methods have been exploited to shape self‐healing polymers into complex structures. Additionally, several novel manufacturing techniques, noted as (re)assembly binding techniques that are specific to self‐healing polymers, have been created. Herein, the wide variety of processing techniques of self‐healing polymers for robotics available in the literature is reviewed, and limitations and opportunities discussed thoroughly. Based on defined requirements for soft robots, these techniques are critically compared and validated. A strong focus is drawn to the reversible covalent and (physico)chemical cross‐links present in the self‐healing polymers that do not only endow healability to the resulting soft robotic components, but are also beneficial in many manufacturing techniques. They solve current obstacles in soft robots, including the formation of robust multi‐material parts, recyclability, and stress relaxation. This review bridges two promising research fields, and guides the reader toward selecting a suitable processing method based on a self‐healing polymer and the intended soft robotics application.

show abstract

Section: Formative Manufacturingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Processing of Self‐Healing Polymers for Soft Robotics

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…by attempting to delineate soft versus rigid materials. [28,84,85] However, more often, these reviews tend to examine the actual material classes and compositions involved in soft robotics. [54,71,[74][75][76]86,87] Interesting material-specific reviews pertaining to incipient research have focused on textiles, [50] as well as hydrogels and other stimuli-responsive materials.…”

Section: Background and Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Data‐Driven Review of Soft Robotics

Jumet

Bell

Sánchez

et al. 2021

Advanced Intelligent Systems

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The past decade of soft robotics has delivered impactful and promising contributions to society and has seen exponentially increasing interest from scientists and engineers. This interest has resulted in growth of the number of researchers participating in the field and the quantity of their resulting contributions, stressing the community's ability to comprehend and build upon the literature. In this work, a data‐driven review is presented that addresses the recent surge of research by providing a quantitative snapshot of the field. Relevant data are catalogued with three levels of analysis. First, publication‐level analysis explores high‐level trends in the field and bibliometric relationships across the more detailed analyses. Second, device‐level analysis examines the tethering of robots and the incorporation of component types (actuators, sensors, controllers, power sources) into each robot. Finally, component‐level analysis investigates the compliances, material compositions, and “function media” (energetic methods by which components operate) of each soft robotic component in the analyzed literature. The reported data indicate a significant reliance on elastomeric materials, electrical and fluidic media, and physical tethering; meanwhile, controllers and power sources remain underdeveloped relative to actuators and sensors. These gaps in the surveyed literature are elaborated upon, and promising future directions for the field of soft robotics are identified.

show abstract

“…An alternative possible method is intrinsically soft and/or extensible materials and structures (hardware intelligence) that can be used in continuum robots to enable a continuum robot to adapt to objects and safely interact with an environment. [ 8–11 ] Compared with software intelligence, in addition to improving the flexibility of movement and reducing the risk of unnecessary harm, intelligence on the hardware structure level is more acceptable in appearance, [ 12 ] especially in medical rehabilitation, [ 13 ] minimally invasive surgery (MIS), [ 14,15 ] and impaired user assistance, [ 16 ] and other fields. “Soft” continuum robots will be required, or preferred, for some of these tasks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soft Robotic Manipulators: Designs, Actuation, Stiffness Tuning, and Sensing

Dou

Zhong

Cao

et al. 2021

Adv Materials Technologies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Soft robotic manipulators are continuum robots made of soft materials and flexible components. The goal of soft robotic manipulators research is to enable these manipulators to adapt their shapes to cluttered environments and to have safer interactions with human. However, there is still a problem with effectively using soft robotic manipulators in practical applications. The challenges of soft robotic manipulators in terms of materials and structure design, stiffness control, perception, and function control remain to be overcome. Here, an overview of recent advances in this field is presented, covering device architectures, actuation, variable stiffness, and sensing. Actuator technologies are discussed and roughly divided into three categories: a) tendon‐driven actuation, b) fluidic actuation, and c) stimuli‐responsive actuation, which is based on smart materials. Considering the working principle of stiffness variation technologies, stiffness variation technologies can be divided into two categories: a) using the interactions between structural elements, b) direct material rigidity tuning strategies. A briefly review of soft sensing technologies is presented. From the functional perspective, sensor technologies are divide into two categories: proprioception and exteroception. A conception for designing soft robotic manipulators is proposed from the perspective of soft robotic manipulator applications. Finally, the challenges this field faces are discussed.

show abstract

Towards an ontology for soft robots: what is soft?

Cited by 20 publications

References 68 publications

Processing of Self‐Healing Polymers for Soft Robotics

Processing of Self‐Healing Polymers for Soft Robotics

A Data‐Driven Review of Soft Robotics

Soft Robotic Manipulators: Designs, Actuation, Stiffness Tuning, and Sensing

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About