Soft robotics is a rapidly evolving field where robots are fabricated using highly deformable materials and usually follow a bioinspired design. Their high dexterity and safety make them ideal for applications such as gripping, locomotion, and biomedical devices, where the environment is highly dynamic and sensitive to physical interaction. Pneumatic actuation remains the dominant technology in soft robotics due to its low cost and mass, fast response time, and easy implementation. Given the significant number of publications in soft robotics over recent years, newcomers and even established researchers may have difficulty assessing the state of the art. To address this issue, this article summarizes the development of soft pneumatic actuators and robots up until the date of publication. The scope of this article includes the design, modeling, fabrication, actuation, characterization, sensing, control, and applications of soft robotic devices. In addition to a historical overview, there is a special emphasis on recent advances such as novel designs, differential simulators, analytical and numerical modeling methods, topology optimization, data-driven modeling and control methods, hardware control boards, and nonlinear estimation and control techniques. Finally, the capabilities and limitations of soft pneumatic actuators and robots are discussed and directions for future research are identified.

Soft Pneumatic Actuators: A Review of Design, Fabrication, Modeling, Sensing, Control and Applications

Soft robots that can move like living organisms and adapt to their surroundings are currently in the limelight from fundamental studies to technological applications, due to their advances in material flexibility, human-friendly interaction, and biological adaptation that surpass conventional rigid machines. Light-fueled smart actuators based on responsive soft materials are considered to be one of the most promising candidates to promote the field of untethered soft robotics, thereby attracting considerable attention amongst materials scientists and microroboticists to investigate photomechanics, photoswitch, bioinspired design, and actuation realization. In this review, we discuss the recent state-of-the-art advances in light-driven bimorph soft actuators, with the focus on bilayer strategy, i.e., integration between photoactive and passive layers within a single material system. Bilayer structures can endow soft actuators with unprecedented features such as ultrasensitivity, programmability, superior compatibility, robustness, and sophistication in controllability. We begin with an explanation about the working principle of bimorph soft actuators and introduction of a synthesis pathway toward light-responsive materials for soft robotics. Then, photothermal and photochemical bimorph soft actuators are sequentially introduced, with an emphasis on the design strategy, actuation performance, underlying mechanism, and emerging applications. Finally, this review is concluded with a perspective on the existing challenges and future opportunities in this nascent research Frontier.

Light-driven bimorph soft actuators: design, fabrication, and properties

This paper contributes to a taxonomy of augmented reality and robotics based on a survey of 460 research papers. Augmented and mixed reality (AR/MR) have emerged as a new way to enhance human-robot interaction (HRI) and robotic interfaces (e.g., actuated and shape-changing interfaces). Recently, an increasing number of studies in HCI, HRI, and robotics have demonstrated how AR enables better interactions between people and robots. However, often research remains focused on individual explorations and key design strategies, and research questions are rarely analyzed systematically. In this paper, we synthesize and categorize this research field in the following dimensions: 1) approaches to augmenting reality; 2) characteristics of robots; 3) purposes and benefits; 4) classification of presented information; 5) design components and strategies for visual augmentation; 6) interaction techniques and modalities; 7) application domains; and 8) evaluation strategies. We formulate key challenges and opportunities to guide and inform future research in AR and robotics.

pdf/augmented-reality-and-robotics-a-survey-and-taxonomy-for-ar-ssz3t2zw.pdf

Augmented Reality and Robotics: A Survey and Taxonomy for AR-enhanced Human-Robot Interaction and Robotic Interfaces

Multi-environment robotic transitions through adaptive morphogenesis

In this paper, we propose a multimodal flexible sensory interface for interactively teaching soft robots to perform skilled locomotion using bare human hands. First, we develop a flexible bimodal smart skin (FBSS) based on triboelectric nanogenerator and liquid metal sensing that can perform simultaneous tactile and touchless sensing and distinguish these two modes in real time. With the FBSS, soft robots can react on their own to tactile and touchless stimuli. We then propose a distance control method that enabled humans to teach soft robots movements via bare hand-eye coordination. The results showed that participants can effectively teach a self-reacting soft continuum manipulator complex motions in three-dimensional space through a "shifting sensors and teaching" method within just a few minutes. The soft manipulator can repeat the human-taught motions and replay them at different speeds. Finally, we demonstrate that humans can easily teach the soft manipulator to complete specific tasks such as completing a pen-and-paper maze, taking a throat swab, and crossing a barrier to grasp an object. We envision that this user-friendly, non-programmable teaching method based on flexible multimodal sensory interfaces could broadly expand the domains in which humans interact with and utilize soft robots. 

/pdf/touchless-interactive-teaching-of-soft-robots-through-3dz3cyfj.pdf

Touchless interactive teaching of soft robots through flexible bimodal sensory interfaces

One of the key differentiators between biological and artificial systems is the dynamic plasticity of living tissues, enabling adaptation to different environmental conditions, tasks, or damage by reconfiguring physical structure and behavioral control policies. Lack of dynamic plasticity is a significant limitation for artificial systems that must robustly operate in the natural world. Recently, researchers have begun to leverage insights from regenerating and metamorphosing organisms, designing robots capable of editing their own structure to more efficiently perform tasks under changing demands and creating new algorithms to control these changing anatomies. Here, an overview of the literature related to robots that change shape to enhance and expand their functionality is presented. Related grand challenges, including shape sensing, finding, and changing, which rely on innovations in multifunctional materials, distributed actuation and sensing, and somatic control to enable next-generation shape changing robots are also discussed.

/pdf/shape-changing-robots-bioinspiration-simulation-and-physical-bfhz5php1e.pdf

Shape Changing Robots: Bioinspiration, Simulation, and Physical Realization.

The emerging generation of robots composed of soft materials strives to match biological motor adaptation skills via shape-shifting. Soft robots often harness volumetric expansion directed by strai...

Reprogrammable soft actuation and shape-shifting via tensile jamming.

Effect of Filler Aspect Ratio on Stiffness and Conductivity in Phase-Changing Particulate Composites

Shape-changing robots that can adapt their physical structure to changing tasks and environments require an ability to locally change their surface curvatures on-demand. Thin shape-shifting sheets represent one approach, and examples using differential growth have shown stimuli-responsive sheets that morph from one shape to another. In this paper, we present pneumatically-actuated bilayer sheets that can morph between shapes using surface fibers that constrain normal expansion while biasing in-plane expansion. The fibers can adhere to the pneumatic sheet to govern its shape trajectory, and can be easily detached and re-attached in various patterns to reconfigure the shape trajectory. We use artificial evolution to solve the geometric inverse problem of determining the fiber placements to attain a target shape upon inflation in simulation. For simple shapes, the evolved solutions converge toward a similar fiber placement strategy. For more complex shapes, evolution finds more diverse fiber patterns, which is desirable since some fiber patterns are more easily fabricated than others. We demonstrate the utility of evolving the fiber patterns in simulation by translating two shapes, a simple saddle and a monkey saddle, from simulation to reality.

Shape Matching: Evolving Fiber Constraints on a Pneumatic Bilayer

Terrestrial and aquatic animals exhibit appendages adapted to the propulsion physics of their primary habitats. Terrestrial appendages typically assume stiff and load-bearing form factors, while aquatic appendages tend to adopt flexible and streamlined profiles. Bio-inspired robots with synthetic appendages often mirror this dichotomy of specialization: they are designed with fixed legs or flippers for locomotion on land or in water, respectively. Appendages that adjust their shape and stiffness can serve to specialize a robot's propulsion physics on demand, enabling transitions between multiple environments. Herein, we report a morphing limb combining layer jamming and pouch-based pneumatic actuation that rapidly and efficiently switches between a flexible flipper for swimming and a rigid leg for walking/crawling. The internal pouch actuator contributes to pressure that jams the external layers of the limb, which we refer to as positive pressure-reinforced jamming. We quantify the extent of shape-morphing conferred by the pouch actuator, the maximum load-bearing capability of the limb in leg mode, and the hydrodynamic characteristics of the limb in flipper mode. We find that the new limb boasts better performance than previous designs with respect to morphing shape, speed, efficiency, and hydrodynamics. Crucially, we also find that positive pressure-reinforced jamming increases the leg's compressive strength by 30% relative to just jamming the layers via negative pressure. With its own lightweight and compact electronics system, the morphing limb is a plug-and-play component for building an untethered multi-environment robot.

Performance Enhancement of a Morphing Limb for an Amphibious Robotic Turtle

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