Soft Robotic Technologies for Industrial Applications

Abstract

Robotic systems built with principles of soft robotic technologies have the potential to exhibit a wide range of unprecedented abilities including, but not limited to, direct and robust interaction with humans and natural environments. This chapter presents an insight to how this technology has been recently exploited to contribute towards Industry 4.0, the next industrial revolution with an ambitious set of goals to innovate factory floors. In particular, the research presented in this chapter has been conducted under the European Union funded Marie-Curie Initial Training Network called Sustainable Manufacturing through Advanced Robotic Technologies (SMART-E).